Movie remakes that didn't understand what made the original film work

The original “Lion King,” the 1994 animated film, is a Disney classic. When it was reimagined in 2019, it was a massive success. We can’t deny that. However, instead of being a classically animated tale, it’s a bunch of photorealistic animals running around the African landscape. There is nothing impressive or compelling about the look of this version of “The Lion King.” Who wants to see an actual warthog as Pumbaa? There is zero charm to 2019’s “Lion King.”

John Carpenter’s 1976 movie “Assault on Precinct 13” is essentially his first feature. It’s a nasty, low-budget affair, and it’s basically a zombie movie. Instead of zombies, though, it’s Los Angeles gang members swarming a police station on the verge of shutting down. There’s basically no plot and no characterization, just ‘70s exploitation action. It rips. The remake just turns it into a generic action movie. It took the name and the basic premise from Carpenter and then created C-minus nothingness. Fortunately, Carpenter’s motto is famously, “If you want to pay me money, do whatever you want with my movies,” so it’s not like he cares.

Richard Linklater is a talented director, and the idea of him making a movie about a ragtag group of kids playing baseball makes sense on paper. The 1976 movie “The Bad News Bears,” though, became a favorite of kids of the ‘70s and ‘80s because, well, if was inappropriate for kids of the ‘70s and ‘80s. It’s crass and cynical. Though the remake is PG-13, do recall that PG-13 didn’t exist in 1976. Linklater’s “Bad News Bears” sanded down all the edges of the original, creating an inert, generic movie.

Recapturing the charms of a 1950s sci-fi movie is not an easy task. “The Day the Earth Stood Still” is a ‘50s classic, featuring one of filmdom’s most famous robots. The remake, even with Keanu Reeves starring, can’t capture that. Also, it couldn’t ride on the wave of Cold War paranoia either. Some movies are really of their era, and trying to rework them decades later is a losing battle.

Hey, it’s John Carpenter again! He probably bought so many video games and (allegedly) marijuana with the money he got for signing off on a remake of his 1980s vibes-based classic “The Fog.” Okay, maybe “classic” is strong, but it’s a good horror movie largely because it has so much feel to it. That was the magic of Carpenter at his peak. The remake is directed by the guy who directed “Stigmata” and “Blank Check.” Yes, the movie is about the kid who gets the blank check.

Some things don’t translate well over the pond. That’s happened with sitcoms, and it’s happened with movies. “Get Carter” is a 1971 British crime movie starring Michael Caine in a nastier role than you may be used to. It became a cult hit, and was more popular in the United States than the U.K. “Get Carter” is British through and through. The 2000 version is All-American. It’s set in Las Vegas and it stars Sylvester Stallone. What made the 1971 movie compelling wasn’t there.

We could probably just say, “Sidney Poitier, Katharine Hepburn, and Spencer Tracy were replaced with Ashton Kutcher, Bernie Mac, and somebody named Judith Scott.” That’d cover it. Beyond that, though, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?” is somewhat heavy-handed, but it’s well-crafted and has excellent acting driving the drama. “Guess Who” is a generic romantic comedy.

Well, 1927’s “The Jazz Singer” was the first movie to make extensive use of sound. It birthed a revolution. The 1980 movie…did not birth a revolution. Look, it’s hard to live up to changing the nature of what a movie could be. The 1980 “Jazz Singer” did keep the blackface, though!

The 1962 “Manchurian Candidate” is awash in Cold War paranoia, but in a way that works. There are plenty of generic Cold War thrillers from days of yore. John Frankenheimer’s movie is also weird, far from boilerplate. While the 2004 version gains Denzel Washington, it loses all the Cold War oomph and tries to make some sort of corporate malevolence the overarching baddie. That just doesn’t cut it. Now, Jonathan Demme’s movie is decent, but it’s missing what made the original so good.

“Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” is flawed. Its politics are dodgy. That being said, Jimmy Stewart was nominated for an Oscar, and it is a classic underdog story. “Billy Jack Goes to Washington” is a loose adaptation, as Tom Laughlin had to work it into his Billy Jack universe. If you aren’t familiar with Billy Jack, well, consider yourself lucky.

This is one of the attempts to truly reboot a franchise. “A Nightmare on Elm Street” birthed a slasher franchise in 1984. Freddy Krueger became an icon of horror. After a while, though, the franchise ran out of steam. So, in 2010, they tried to start it all over again. Jackie Earle Haley stepped in as Freddy in what is a remake of the original. However, they tried to modernize it and make the world of “Elm Street” and Freddy himself more complicated. That was entirely pointless, and audiences agreed.

No, it’s not that we have a problem with the gender flip of the “Overboard” remake. That’s the sort of thing that could give it life and keep it from feeling generic and pointless. The problem is that “Overboard” has little to nothing as a concept. To the extent the 1987 movie works, it works because it stars Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn. They have tremendous chemistry together and are compelling movie stars. The remake had Anna Faris and Eugenio Derbez. They aren’t Kurt and Goldie.

Hmm…what did Robert Zemeckis’ 2022 version of “Pinocchio” lack that the 1940 Disney animated movie had? Well, there’s a reasonable runtime…good voiceover work…and an aesthetic that isn’t viscerally unpalatable. Of all of Disney’s swings at remaking old animated classics in live-action, “Pinocchio” may very well be the worst. Adding insult to injury, in 2022, Guillermo del Toro (and co-director Mark Gustafson) also adapted the story “Pinocchio” and won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.

People called Gus Van Sant’s “Psycho” a shot-for-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 classic. That, in and of itself, is not a great idea. You’re going to get compared to the original, and you likely aren’t going to live up to it. Plus, Vince Vaughn and Anne Heche are decidedly not Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh. However, Van Sant’s film isn’t really a shot-for-shot remake, but his changes also make his version a bit worse.

The 1975 “Rollerball” is more cult classic than properly good movie, but it is fun ‘70s sci-fi. This version doesn’t overdo it. Also, it stars James Caan, a fine actor. The 2002 version was directed by John McTiernan. He directed “Die Hard!” Unfortunately, his “Rollerball” is no “Die Hard.” It’s bad 2000s sci-fi, as it complicates things too much, and the directing is too chaotic. Additionally, it starred Chris Klein in the movie that made it clear “Chris Klein is not a movie star.”

Man, the 1974 version of “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three” is so good. It cuts to the chase, and it’s a great ‘70s New York movie. You can feel the grime and the chaos in the best way. Tony Scott doesn’t do visceral, realistic grime. He does over-the-top action and slick filmmaking. Sometimes it works! In this movie, it doesn’t. Plus, while Robert Shaw is an all-business baddie in the original, John Travolta hams it up hard.

1983’s “Valley Girl,” in addition to being the first significant role for Nicholas Cage, is flawed, but fun and quite good in that ‘80s comedy way. It’s enrobed in the culture of that time, and also has a killer soundtrack. When they remade it, though, it became a “Hey, it’s the ‘80s!” movie. It’s a slapped-together period piece. Also, they turned it into a jukebox musical for some reason. So, basically, they took the kind of good songs that would have been in the original and made them worse.

This time, Cage is on the wrong end of things. This version of “The Wicker Man” became a meme-able punchline immediately, and reasonably so. It’s a disaster, through and through. So much so, you might assume the original is a silly, bombastic, and over-the-top film, if perhaps less gonzo owing to a lack of Cage. That’s not the case, though. It’s a 1973 British horror movie that feels entirely different. It has more in common with Ari Aster’s “Midsommar” than the Cage movie that remade it.