The Manchurian Candidate

I'd held off for a bit on seeing this; the original Manchurian Candidate is an all-time favorite movie, and, well, you know... At the end of this film I scooted over to my bookshelf and grabbed the DVD case of the original. My guess was the remake was no more than 90 minutes and the original must have been at least two and 1/2 hours in duration. Good Lord! They were both exactly 129 minutes long! There's a profound lesson here. The first film, in that wonderful 129 managed to tell a great story, travel a lot, freak me out repeatedly, stun me with novelty (the playing cards, the whole Republican/McCarthy/Lincoln shtick, the "flower show' interrogation, the "jump in a lake", getting drunk with Shaw, and on and on) work in a great love story, work in a tragic love story, work in a pathological love story, and develop a host of intriguing characters, and thrill me with what seemed to be an unending sequence of marvelous performances. The equally lengthy remake stirred little sympathies and seldom got off the ground. As storytelling, the film spun its wheels. You'd think if you remake a movie, ignore character development, ignore any relationship development, ignore any complex and intelligent commentary on modern goings-on (it was just terrorism and corporate involvement in war handled in the most superficial way)--ignore a whale of a lot--you could bring the thing in at about 48 minutes, maybe 60 with commercials. If I watch it again (not likely) I'll have a stop-watch handy and I'll take notes. It was like some magic trick. So what happened in that 129 minutes anyway? I'm honestly not sure--Denzel Washington sweats a lot and communicated none of the subtlety and complexity that Sinatra managed, Meryl Streep brought on the heretical thought that maybe she's overrated and maybe Angela Lansbury was underrated, I missed Janet Leigh who delivered the same lines splendidly, I missed the black humor and irony and ambiguity, and who the heck was that bad Lawrence Harvey impressionist? Motivations were lost, the WHOLE POINT that everyone hated this guy but parroted their adoration for him wasn't presented clearly, and the motivation for the entire brainwashing venture was muddled up by the script after first stating that it was all about control. What a mess. Every time the film tried to echo the original, it'd already gone so far off track that it just confused matters even worse. My serious suggestion is that some professor (and not necessarily a film professor) have a class watch both versions, note what went right in 129 minutes in the original, and what went horribly wrong in the 129 minutes of the remake and then have the students try to explain why. My guess is the answers will be fascinating. On a scale of 1 - 10, 10 being an excellent and 1 absolutly tanking I would give this DVD a 4 out of 10

Definitely Worth the Money

This remake of the classic film with Frank Sinatra, Lawrence Harvey, Angela Lansbury and Janet Leigh does the original script honor. Denzel Washington, as usual, is terrific, and Meryl Streep and Liev Schreiber deliver the goods. Streep presents a character that is at once the classic domineering mother on a worldwide political stage, while giving insight into the darkness of her real relationship to her son and her own ambitions. Very nice piece of work here.

Action is really good, not too much but just enough to keep the plot moving. The tension builds at a good pace. The characters are sharply defined doing service to the original plot. Jonathan Demme is up to his usual excellence and the viewer is rewarded because of it.

Highly recommend. Get out the popcorn and settle in.

Good enough, but don't miss the original

Personally I prefer the 1962 original with Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, and Angela Lansbury, but this is a serviceable remake, with believable updating for modern audiences.

A bit more action-oriented than the earlier film, but this one features a strong leading performance by Denzel Washington, whose presence makes any movie better.

Worth watching, but no classic this time out.

The Manchurian Candidate (DVD, 2004)

This is a real thriller. The unthinkable possibilities that such a thing could happen is sobering. Of course, I'm referring to the premise that an American has been brainwashed and programmed to work against the USA not just as a double agent, but as President! When you consider the possibilities, and parallel the current political positions in America, it is downright scary. This is an enjoyable movie and one that will make you question everything that you see on the news today.

The Manchurian Candidate with Denzel Washington

I recently spent several hours of a day in a hospital emergency room. As usual the TV was on. The person with the controller would change channels about every 15 minutes. One such 15 minutes showed a portion of The Manchurian Candidate. Somehow I had missed this particular version of the movie, but knew that I wanted to watch the entire movie. So I went to eBay, found a good deal and fortunately won the bid. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and have watched it twice.