MovieChat Forums > The Manchurian Candidate (2004) Discussion > This Is, To Date, The Worst Remake Ever ...

This Is, To Date, The Worst Remake Ever Made

posted 17 years ago by ecarle
48 replies | jump to latest

SPOILERS for BOTH "Manchurian Candidates":

Probably my favorite movie -- as a matter of personal influence from a young age rather than in direct comparison with modern films -- is Hitchcock's "Psycho" of 1960.

Gus Van Sant made a remake of "Psycho" in 1998 that is reviled by many "Psycho-philes." I consider that movie an "experiment that succeeded by failing." I don't like Van Sant's "Psycho," and his attempt to re-do Hitchocck "shot by shot" failed egregiously.

But at least Van Sant's "Psycho" WAS "Psycho" as best as it could be: same plot, same shots, most of the same lines. Van Sant tried to tell Hitchcock's classic tale (from a Robert Bloch novel) for a new generation.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Demme and his writers went the whole other way when they remade the spectacular and historic "The Manchurian Candidate" from 1962.

The idea seemed to be: let's remake "The Manchurian Candidate" by ignoring absolutely, positively EVERYTHING about the movie -- its plot, its setting, its era, its music, its characters -- that made it such a great movie.

There was a catch: Demme was an Oscar-winning hotshot with "The Silence of the Lambs" on his resume. HIS "Manchurian Candidate" had Oscar-winning star heavyweights Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep in it, and both were quite good here (with Streep earning an Oscar nomination.)

Having two such big stars and such a respected director made the new "Manchurian Candidate" difficult to hate, but not really. Matters got easy when at least one of the stars -- Denzel -- said he'd never even SEEN the original film, and hence didn't care about it.

The original "Manchurian Candidate" was set in the fifties around the time of "the McCarthy era", but released in 1962, at a time when the Cold War was heating up (via the Cuban Missile Crisis) , and US vs. Russian tensions could legitimately have ended the world.

"MC1" was made by liberal filmmakers (director John Frankenheimer, writer George Axelrod, star Frank Sinatra), and made its Joe McCarthy clone ("John Iselin") a right-wing buffoon with a scary right-wing nut wife (Angela Lansbury) but at least posited that the Soviet and Chinese Communists COULD be aggressors.

"MC1" brilliantly worked out the idea of novelist Richard Condon: Joe McCarthy's buffoonish attack on "communists" in the U.S. government could only be the work of a COMMUNIST agent sent to misdirect the U.S. from the REAL Commies looking to take over the nation from within, via brainwashing (a rumored action of the Korean War.)

"MC1" presented its twisted political tale with a classic mix of the sadly tragic (the opening score was almost tearjerking in its suggestion of the sad events about to occur) the funny (the Chinese Commie bad guy chides the Russian Commie bad guy about "making a profit" off of their NYC mental hospital front for brainwashing), and the grandly surreal ("women's garden party speeches" which turned out to be dream memories of Manchurian brainwashing experiments; the brainwash motif of using the Queen of Hearts and the phrase "Why don't you play a nice game of solitare?" as a killer's trigger.)

Demme's "Manchurian Candidate" elected to totally eschew the Joe McCarthy references, Chinese and Russian Communists, the Queen of Hearts motif, the heartrending music, the "garden party" brainwashing sequences -- even the then-new-and-classic furniture-destroying karate fight between Frank Sinatra's hero and Henry Silva's Korean villain in Laurence Harvey's Manhattan apartment.

With all of those classic scenes and motifs gone, Jonathan Demme's "Manchurian Candidate" ends up as a typically unbelievably and insanely overplotted 00's pedestrian thriller, somewhere between "Enemy of the State" and "Deja Vu," more Bruckheimer than Demme. (The Janet Leigh character is really FBI? The Sinatra character is programmed to kill TOO? And what else?)

With the complex Cold War geopolitics of the original gone, the new "MC" substitutes the overused, overdone Faceless Corporation as its villain (hello, Halliburton, which may be true, but still cliche) -- and makes that villain rather toothless and easily overcome. The Commies in the original were terrifyingly efficent.

This new "Manchurian Candidate" is closer to the "faceless conspiracy" thriller "The Parallax View" of 1974, which was a good movie but which, like this one, lacked the heart and cinematic brilliance of "The Manchurian Candidate." There's something gutless and uncommitted about the new "Manchurian Candidate" that makes it very aggravating to me. Same old, same old.

On the star acting: Frank Sinatra gave, arguably, his greatest performance in "MC 1." He knew President Kennedy wanted to see this movie, and helped get it made. In return, Sinatra CONCENTRATED and gave us a fine portrait of a brainwashed solider whose mind is fighting the wash -- he's a sweaty, quivering mass of melancholy and rage, in alternating doses. Denzel, on the other hand, plays SOME of Sinatra's mental state, but feels more compelled to keep up the usual charismatic fast-talking intelligence of the prototype Denzel hero model. It's nice star acting, but Denzel never seems as damaged as Sinatra did.

The Great Streep comes up against Angela Lansbury's simply horrifying vision of an incestuous Monster Mother (both actresses were Oscar-nominated) and for once,Meryl comes out the loser. Lansbury found the bile AND the sexuality in her character, who gave her son a shocking (and hand-blocked) 1962 kiss on the lips. Streep is too "Streepish" -- all technique and authority in a dry-run for her uber-bitch boss in "The Devil Wears Pravda." Moreover, Streep hasn't been given the great line "Why don't you play a nice game of solitare" to trigger her son's murderous side --instead its a flatfooted and strident "Corporal Raymond K. Shaw!" or something like that (honestly, I can't even remember it anymore.)

Raymond Shaw was Laurence Harvey's greatest role -- he was born to play it: cold, haughty, unfeeling, and yet always sad and victimized. Raymond Shaw as played by Harvey was Frankenstein's Monster with a cold heart grown warm. Nothing was sadder than to see Harvey's Raymond -- already destroyed by his mad mother long before the Koreans got him -- finally find love and then have to kill the same woman who saved him. Liev Schreiber, a fine actor elsewhere, isn't as well cast and isn't given as great a murder scene of his beloved to perform.

To compare Sinatra, Harvey, and Lansbury to Washington, Screiber, and Streep is create the wrong comparison between the two "Manchurian Candidates." All six were/are good actors. There are always many good actors in Hollywood.

No, the atrocity that is the new "Manchurian Candidate" stems from the modern-day filmmakers' complete and utter disregard for everything -- and I mean EVERYTHING -- that made the first movie one of the greatest movies ever made. (And not just in 1962; "MC1" was rereleased to theaters and video after 25 years out of circulation and deemed "the best movie of 1988" by some critics

The outcome was very weird: though it wasn't, the new "Manchurian Candidate" looked like it was made by dummies.

And Jonathan Demme may have made a fatal misstep. Coming after his even more disastrous flop remake of the less-classic but still fine "Charade" ("The Truth About Charlie"), this once-respected indiefilm maker and Oscar-winner is now known as "the man who made two clueless remakes of two classic thrillers."

We'll see if Demme ever gets his reputation back.

[–] 12 years ago

[deleted]

[–] franzkabuki 12 years ago

So the idea is that the more a remake imitates the original, the better it is? That´s kinda absurd, though - I mean, what´s the point in remaking it all if you don´t bring anything new to the table besides the most superficial elements such as clothing styles and merely settle for copying the earlier film as best you can? Demme´s film should have arguably diverted even further from Frankenheimer´s.

And this 2004 TMC, although vastly inferior to the original, is actually one of the best remakes I´ve seen. It does admittedly dumb things down a good deal in changing the whole method in which matters are presented (via lots of blunt exposition here), rendering many things boringly obvious. It also eliminates the humorous, absurdly satirical streak that the the original strived on - as well as the surreal tinge by explicitly stating what Frankenheim administred without explanation. But the remake eventually does grow up to be its own thing and present a different kind of a story pretty well. Even if the acting, and often the dialogue, are also somewhat weaker (in particular, Harvey simply blows Schreiber away and hammy, sub-par - by her standards - Streep never really stands up to Lansbury´s exceptional performance).

"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

[–] peter_t_2k3 12 years ago

I usually hate remakes and haven't seen the original of this but I thought I'd add my thoughts.

The OP mentions the Psycho remake at least staying true to the original and so it isn't as big of a failure compared to this. I have to disagree. The reason the remake of Psycho failed in my opinion was exactly that reason, it was too similar, it was a shot by shot remake.

As the guy previously has posted, remakes should try and bring something new to a certain degree. It's in my opinion the problem with remakes and why they usually fail - they either change too much and ruin the original or change nothing and what's the point in watching a remake if it's just the same film.

I do intend to see the original but found the remake really interesting and well acted. I think a lot of people might actually like the film a lot more if they see it as something else instead of a remake.

[–] Ithilfaen 11 years ago

but at least Van Sant's "Psycho" WAS "Psycho" as best as it could be: same plot, same shots, most of the same lines. Van Sant tried to tell Hitchcock's classic tale (from a Robert Bloch novel) for a new generation.

So your point is that it's ok if a movie is an exact copy of a previous one, only with sexier actors for the kiddies but reinterpreting a movie's plot is just plain wrong?

It's like saying Nina Simone's version of "Ain't Got No" is bad because she's not pretending to sing like the guys in Hair did.

For every lie I unlearn I learn something new - Ani Difranco

[–] Pzachlen 11 years ago

The original MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE is a great film but Sinatra almost ruined it.

[–] ItsNotJust-a-flick 11 years ago

Though many of the arguments OP stated may be valid, I beg to differ with the opinion that “(using) Faceless Corporation as its villain… makes that villain rather toothless and easily overcome”. The worst villains are those that are unseen, faceless, those inside us, inside the system. They are like cancer that cannot be beaten. That’s much more complex than having typical Hollywood good guys/bad guys dichotomy.

Your point that the notion of the Russian/Chinese communists in the original film working together with the far-right American politicians is much more controversial and interesting is true, but only if you ignore this fact – what is really frightening in today’s politics is that all the improprieties are pretty much common and acceptable (only hypocrites will state otherwise) and that the border between the good and the evil is completely blurred.

Or you still believe that only the commies and far-right crazies are “bad guys”?

***70s - the time when even Stallone had to make a decent film***

[–] gjordan77 11 years ago

I liked it just fine. You just seem offended at the idea that it wasn't "evil" communists, because an "evil" corporation is too much of a stretch? rofl. Sounds like YOUR delicate senses have been offended, so I guess they achieved that much at least.

[–] ecarle 9 years ago

You just seem offended at the idea that it wasn't "evil" communists, because an "evil" corporation is too much of a stretch? rofl. Sounds like YOUR delicate senses have been offended, so I guess they achieved that much at least.

---

No, I think corporations can certainly be evil...they've outlasted the Communists and the right wing as a power base...but Demme's Manchurian Candidate ruined EVERYTHING else, too:

The music.
The characters. (Sinatra's broken hero; Lansbury's evil plotter...Denzel and especially Streep missed the point entirely.)
The plot. (The one after the other twisty machinations at the end.)
The great "garden party brainwashing scenes."
The great Sinatra/Korean fight(simply removed from this version.)
The mix of sadness and comedy and Goth.

But more to the point, The Manchurian Candidate is timelessly of its time, when Communism was seen as End-of-the-World bad and yet right wingers capitalized on it to the ruin of good Americans.

You just seem offended at the idea that it wasn't "evil" communists, because an "evil" corporation is too much of a stretch? rofl. Sounds like YOUR delicate senses have been offended, so I guess they achieved that much at least.

[–] MrJJay 9 years ago

The OP is clearly a troll. The fact that he called this movie the worst remake just because he didn't like it proves this.

What kind of an argument is this? You want the exact same plot, scenes, characters? Watch the original one.

[–] goldpink23 9 years ago

@MrJJay.I agree with you.However I won't call the OP a troll.Everything else you said

[–] goldpink23 9 years ago

@ecarle.Not to me.This is one of my favorite movies.I gave it a 9 rating.I like all of the performances.However Meryl Streep and Denzel Washington gave the best performances.That's just my OPINION and I'm not the least bit surprised people on IMDb would rate this so low.

[–] AndrewGS 8 years ago

I like the remake a lot more than the original (maybe in part because I saw the second remake first but I think there are a lot more reasons).

Both movies are pretty blatant in their political ideas but in the original I really didn't see how the Communists would want to get an intensely (even if insincerely) anti-Communist politician elected.

What was wrong with Marco also being programmed to kill? I liked that the remake cut out the buffoonish stepfather character and instead just made the war hero the candidate and Marco made sense as the assassin.

The corporation may have been too faceless and underdeveloped but its motives and goals, increasing U.S. militarism for profit, were hardly bland.

The remake also had some, and effective, surrealism although more focused around paranoia-Ben thinking he sees the implant doctor and then him really being there and Ben being lucky enough to find it soon after, Ben and Melvin repeating the same words about Shaw and Melvin imagining Shaw as with snakes coming out of his head, Shaw admitting that he knows what will happen on the mission but doesn't remember it happening, not revealing for a while that Ben got Shaw's implant out but kept it, the confusions and suspicions about if Rosie is part of the conspiracy or against it or just a checkout clerk.