Top 10... Remakes

More and more it seems there's no original ideas in mainstream Hollywood, but it turns out that this has always been the case, and it just seems more prevalent now because there's so many more films released each week, and less original stories to go around, so therefore there's more rehashed versions of films gone by available to us on a weekly basis. 2012 saw three remakes in the Box Office Top 20 (The Amazing Spider-Man, Snow White and the Huntsman, Les Miserables), and this is far from new, hell, even The Wizard of Oz was a remake back in 1939 of three silent films that came before it (and a book, but everything's a remake of a book these days). The thing is though... I don't mind. I have no problem with modern film makers updating older films to introduce them to a wider audience - there have been several instances where a remake has inspired me to go back and see the original, and I've discovered a classic that I otherwise may have never found (Scarface springs to mind).

So what inspired this list? Well, The Film Vituperatum's movie of the week is The Adventures of Robin Hood, which whilst I haven't seen it yet and therefore haven't got around to reviewing, I am more than familiar with the story, mainly due to the various adaptations of it. If I had to guess, I'd say the story of Robin Hood is probably one of the top three most adapted tales in history, after A Christmas Carol and Alice in Wonderland, but my list of top 10 Robin Hood adaptations would see Kevin Costner taking third place behind John Cleese in Time Bandits and an animated fox, at which point the list would end because I haven't seen any others, so instead I'm going to celebrate the greatest remakes that I've ever seen, regardless of whether I've watched the originals or not. Oh, and The Wizard of Oz didn't make the list, because I'm fairly sure I've never seen it all the way through. The list also doesn't include any English-language remakes of originally foreign works, because that would be another list entirely, and one I'll save for another day - perhaps when Ringu is selected for movie of the week?

Top 5... Dinosaur Movies

Dinosaurs! It's no surprise to anyone that I love me some prehistoric beasties. I can probably trace my love of dinosaurs back to the child I've never really stopped being, but there's something about the fact that these giant, terrifying creatures once ruled the very land we walk upon that captures my imagination. Sadly, dinosaurs have become somewhat scarce out in the real world in recent millenia, so the best place to see them at their finest is in the movies. This list is probably one of my least surprising, especially the top 2, as they're films I rarely go a day without mentioning, but the list was an inevitable one, and I was at a loss for what else to do this week, so here it is:

5. Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
I think the Ice Age movies have been cruelly ignored, deemed 'lesser animation,' and basically dismissed by many people who haven't seen them. Whilst they're certainly nowhere near as good as most of Pixar's output (but then, what is?), the Ice Ages are actually worth your time. Part three, The Dawn of the Dinosaurs, though not technically historically accurate, is probably my favourite of the bunch (I've not seen part four, Continental Drift, yet), and whilst including dinosaurs probably didn't hurt it's cause, the main reason I like it most is Simon Pegg's deranged one-eyed ferret Buck. I'd also like to use this opportunity to complain about Ice Age 2: The Meltdown. At one point, the herd (comprised of Ray Romano's Manny the mammoth, John Leguizamo's Sid the sloth, Denis Leary's Diego the sabre-tooth tiger, Josh Peck and Seann William Scott's possums Eddie and Crash and Queen Latifah's Ellie the mammoth-who-thinks-she's-a-possum) encounters an expanse littered with erupting geysers. Manny wants to cross, but Diego warns him that "It's a minefield out there!" The one part of this film's suspension of disbelief - of which quite a lot is required - that I just cannot overcome is how exactly does Diego know what a minefield is? Small gripe, I know, but it never stops annoying me whenever the film is on TV.

King Kong (2005)

 A lot of people dislike Peter Jackson’s remake of 1933’s King Kong, made simply because the original is one of Jackson’s own favourite films, but once you get past the overlong New York-set character establishing and the woeful miscasting of Jack Black as movie producer Carl Denham, what’s left is an entertaining and well realised modern retelling of a well known story with a renowned ending known to all, whether they’ve seen the films or not. Aside from Black, it is this sense of inevitability that lets the film down. We all know going in that at some point a giant gorilla is going to capture, then fall for aspiring actress Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts, doing the best she can as essentially a scream on legs), before being captured himself, shipped to New York and thrown on stage as the latest attraction, ultimately forcing him to escape and take a fateful climb atop the Empire State Building, ultimately being killed not by machine gun-toting bi-planes, but by the bright, bloody blade of beauty. I’m not suggesting for a moment that the ending should have been changed, maybe with Kong swimming back to Skull Island with Ann perched on his head, or perhaps the NY locals gradually accepting Kong for who he is, eventually electing him mayor, paving the way for a comedy-heavy sequel, seeing Ann escorting Kong to various prestigious events, climaxing in an unveiling at the Smithsonian, where confronting a T-Rex skeleton brings back too many memories for the now refined ape, causing him to rip off his custom made tuxedo (with comically oversized and troublesome bowtie), break the skeletons jaw and finally settle down in an overgrown corner of Central Park, or in an enclosure at San Diego Zoo. No, the story was rightfully left intact, if a little extended in places, and mercifully the 1930s setting was also maintained, moving it all to the modern day could have ruined this movie.

As for Black, I’m not sure who could have replaced him as the egotistical, deceitful, driven moviemaker, but I think an older actor could have lent a little gravitas to the role, and since watching Midnight Run I’ve wanted to recast everyone with Charles Grodin, so I’m going to go with him.

The film doesn’t really get going until the approach to the island, with Jackson using some innovative effects and camerawork (the screaming rocks and the shot of Jamie Bell being flung around in the crow’s nest are particular highlights), but the best parts, in my opinion, involve the creatures of the island. Populated with dinosaurs, creepy-crawlies the size of caravans and creatures that are essentially giant penises with teeth and a penchant for human limbs, it’s not exactly an ideal holiday destination, but the respective battles and chases involving these beasties are the most entertaining and thrilling sequences in the film, the CGI is impeccable if a little soulless at times. Kong’s fight against three Tyrannosaurs over Ann is beautifully choreographed, and worth the three hour runtime alone.

There’s also some nice in-jokes (Denham can’t cast Fay Wray in his picture, as she’s shooting a rival film at RKO with Merian C. Cooper, that’ll be the original Kong then), and the interpretation of Kong is astounding, with Andy Serkis using his motion capture skills seen as Gollum to great effect, soon to be used again in Jackson and Spielberg’s Tintin, and the absurdly named Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Choose film 7/10