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By John Finbarr McGarr The film industry is, after all, an industry; meaning its top priority is to make money. Without money, Hollywood would not exist. So, the most sure-fire way of making a profit is to market films that have been proven to be popular with audiences. This comes in the form of sequels, casting popular actors and reboots of old franchises.
But none of these techniques are as shameless and transparent as the remake-- taking a pre-existing movie and just making it again. Reboots do not cross the same line as remakes, as they somewhat act as sequels, in the hope of restarting the franchise. Remakes, on the other hand, act as though the original is irrelevant, and that the world needs a newer, more updated version. The biggest offender at the moment is Disney, since it is now going through an “anti-renaissance” of remaking all of its old properties. All of their new remakes are huge step downs in quality from the original animated films. The over-reliance on CGI has resulted in characters that were once cut and lovable, becoming creepy and unnerving. Just compare the Robin Williams Genie to the Will Smith Genie. The cartoony style allowed the old Disney characters to be expressive and energetic, but the new 3-D CGI characters look like the antagonists from a horror film. Obviously, Disney knows that a brand new 2019 retelling of Aladdin (1992) is going to rake in much more money than if they just re-released the classic version. Another equally offensive trend at Hollywood is the English-language remake. Films like Oldboy (2003) have had the misfortune to have been remade for western audiences. Aside from being absolutely incompetent in terms of writing, directing and editing, the English 2013 remake of Oldboy acts as a barrier to foreign film. There is an entire world of film outside of Hollywood, and films like Oldboy act as gateways to introduce western audiences to foreign films, due to how accessible and appealing it is. The English language remake prevents this from happening by offering a more inferior alternative for western audiences to watch, just so that they do not have to read subtitles. However, being a remake does not make the film inherently bad. In the film The Thing From Another World (1951), the characters unite together in order to fight off the titular villain. However, in the remake, The Thing (1982), John Carpenter took the film in a new direction; by having the characters grow divided and lose their trust in one another, due to the Thing’s shapeshifting abilities. By doing this, he made a new story entirely and allowing audiences to have different viewing experiences when watching both films. Sometimes, being a remake enhances the film’s quality. It is rare for a director to remake their own film, but that didn’t stop Michael Haneke from remaking his German-language film Funny Games (1997), which acts a satire of modern horror films and the audiences that watch these movies. In Funny Games (2008), the same criticisms are made, but the fact that he remade it, shot-for-shot, adds to the critique of the lazy, workman-like process of the Hollywood horror industry. This makes the concept of remakes are a little more complicated than the simple idea of them bastardizing the original. It has been proven that Hollywood remakes can be of quality, with films like True Grit (2010), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) and The Departed (2006), with the latter even winning the best picture award at the Academy Awards. But then the concept of a remake gets blurred with films like Heart of Darkness (1993) and The Revenant (2015). Heart of Darkness is based off of the 1899 novella of the same name, which was previously adapted into the more famous Apocalypse Now (1979). It could be argued that Heart of Darkness is a remake of Apocalypse Now, but another way to look at it is that Heart of Darkness is a re-adaptation of the source material. A similar problem arises with the story of Hugh Glass, whose story was adapted into Man in the Wilderness (1971), which was then adapted into a 2002 novel by Michael Punke, later being adapted into The Revenant (2015). Again, it could be argued that The Revenant is a remake of Man in the Wilderness, but another argument could be made that The Revenant is more of an adaptation of the novel. While Hollywood is trying its best to make as much profit as possible through remakes, there are many cases in which a remake proves to be of quality. Remakes can be seen as no different than the adaptation of books and television series into films. They should be thought less of a “copy and paste” job and more of a reinterpretation. While remakes can be offensive and shameless, with the right director and writer, a remake of a film can stand up to the original - the film industry needs to learn more from directors like; John Carpenter, Michael Haneke, the Coen Brothers, David Fincher and Martin Scorsese.
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by John Finbarr McGarr Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) is directed by Brian Singer and Dexter Fletcher, allegedly. It is a biopic of legendary singer, Freddie Mercury. Or it could be a biopic of the band Queen -- it is not clear which. Mercury is on all of the promotional material and is the lead character, but the film never really delves into his life beyond what can be found on Wikipedia. The majority of the film is dedicated to the rise of popularity of Queen, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does it in the most bizarre way: by showing how each individual song was written and how the public reacted to it. It all felt like filler, as if the writers realised they were lacking half a movie’s worth of story, so instead opted to show off Queen songs in the hopes that the audiences would get excited by seeing something they recognise. The most frustrating part is that there was a genuinely interesting story to be told about Freddie Mercury, but the remaining band members of Queen apparently refused to allow it to be shown because it focused too much on Mercury. So, instead, the story is just the writers ticking off a checklist of Queen songs. The only song that had an interesting creation was the titular song Bohemian Rhapsody. The debate with the producer over the song’s length was potentially interesting, but it ends before it gets the chance to take off. The audience’s general reaction to Bohemian Rhapsody was another source of potential interest, but it was conveyed in such a strange way: The film shows the cast re-enacting the iconic music video as quotes from critics begin to surface across the screen. It even highlights the bigger news outlets, like the Wall Street Journal, making the film come across as arrogant and egotistical. While modern audiences may disagree with the initial reaction to Bohemian Rhapsody, the movie essentially villainizes any negative opinion toward the song. Another aspect of the scene is that it feels so lazy. It would not be surprising to hear that showing off all the negative critiques was added as a last minute decision. Speaking of lazy, the plot is generic and uninspired--the writers probably didn’t know that they had to have an idea of what the movie was going to be before they start writing. In the beginning, there is an actual scene that goes something like (paraphrasing): “Oh no, our lead singer just abandoned us and tonight’s the night we perform, we need a new singer right now!” Then Freddy Mercury introduces himself to them. Apparently, that is not how Queen formed, so instead of showing the real way the band came together, someone thought it would be a good idea to go with the most clichéd approach possible. This would be acceptable for a children’s movie but not for a movie that is aimed at audiences aged 15+. All of the people who grew up with Queen in the 70s and 80s would be in their forties or fifties now, so why is it written for children to understand? Every single story beat is so predictable that you can see it coming from a mile away: Everything from the aforementioned cliché of Queen coming together, to the band learning that their latest song is a huge hit, to when the band members fall out with each before regrouping before the big performance. When Queen (in real life) first found out one of their songs was a success was when all four of them were in an elevator together and heard it over the radio; they nearly crashed the elevator because of how excited they got when they heard the news. In the movie, instead of showing that, someone walks into the room and tells them the news-- the most basic, barebones, forgettable, lazy and uninteresting way of conveying that information. The plot is so clichéd that you could time it so that you can go to the toilet and not miss anything important.
The whole movie probably felt so directionless because it did not have a director. According to rumours, Brian Singer was fired after he continually failed to show up on set, forcing the cinematographer to direct some scenes, and then Dexter Fletcher stepped in to finish off the post production. Therefore, many scenes lack any sort of creativity or vision behind them. It felt so mechanical that you could easily imagine the process of filming this movie; set up scene, press record, act out scene, cut. The finale of this movie, the legendary Live Aid performance, was so underwhelming that it deflated the whole scene. The CGI of the crowd and stadium stood out like a sore thumb, forcing me to think of the small handful of extras that were actually on set. To make it worse, the camera kept cutting back to the same few excited faces of the Live Aid audience, making it seem so small-scale and minimal. Live Aid was a famous event because of how huge it was, but the movie does it a disservice by reminding the audience that they couldn’t even assemble a crowd larger than twelve people. To the movie’s credit, all of the performances were fine, Rami Malek was decent as Freddy Mercury, although it was incredibly obvious whenever he was lip syncing. The set design was good and there were a few moments that were funny. However, I am genuinely struggling to think of anything else of quality. Why does this movie even exist? The non-existent director clearly had no interest in the project, the band members of Queen limited the movie’s depth by restricting what could be shown, and anything of note that happened in real life was replaced with a less exciting version. The irony of Bohemian Rhapsody is that it depicts Queen as a unique band that broke trends and used their talent and creativity to propel themselves to the music legends that they are today, while the movie is the most cookie-cutter, by the books and conformist series of events imaginable. Rating: 4/10 |
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April 2024
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