Ok so about two years ago There was this movie call "repo:The genetic Opera". It was a bizarre psychedelic trip through a perverse gothic/cyberpunk world where organ failure was so common that it became big business to sell organs. The story followed a hulking assassin/doctor on his mission to recover lost organs and dealt mostly with his internal conflict towards his horrific but seemingly necessary job.
Now, or soon from now, We have "Repo men" A Bland trip through a generic future world where organ failure is so common that it has become big business to sell organs. The story follows a hulking assassin doctor and deals mostly with hiBLLARRRGAH!
Now I'm all for a good remake every now and again, Especially if it extends or builds upon the idea of the original. Let's take the new version of "The Crazies" for instance. The original movie by Romero had an interesting, though by now completely over told, story and setting and attempted to prey upon the uncanny fear of our friends and neighbors turning against us for no reason. The idea is certainly a spooky one, the image of our friends standing before us as nothing but shells, empty eyes flicking wildly about as they jerkily inch toward us. This is compounded by the fact that these are not zombies, simply men driven mad. The problem is that this movie was shot in the 70's, and as such every last crew member was stoned off their ass. The female leads were a particular problem, staring into the camera with eyes more vacant then the shambling horrors they unconvincingly screamed at.
Perhaps now, in this era of narcotic prohibition and improved acting, we can get the true psychological terror which the crazies should have presented. It certainly looks much more promising, though I fear that It may fall prey to the common flaw of attempting to make something better. Subtle distress will be replaced by dismemberment and gore as Brick Irondick and his waif love interest battle their way through the hordes. And thats the big problem, thats what I hate. I hate it when america feels as though something really does need more violence and vagina.
Don't get me wrong, Repo the genetic opera wasn't really what you would call good, per-say. Most if it's songs, for it was an opera remember, were horrible; they resembled something more akin to a 12 year old girl warbling out songs about how tortured her soul is while My chemical romance screeches int the backround then a true musical number. However, no matter how flawed, at least Repo was attempting to be different, to be unique. This new repo isn't attempting to follow the source material or even to be something unique, they're simply pouring the general premise into the same copout scifi action mold that has become so freaking popular these days. They're reducing it to a fine grey goo and shoveling it down our throats like so much reconstituted cardboard gruel.
This is the overarching problem with the whole of Hollywood it seems, we're just being fed the same half dozen movies over and over again in new packaging. Those that do manage to be new usually succeed on being glaringly uninteresting, case in point : The Book of Eli. When given the atmosphere of the end of days, the charisma denzel washington and a story which, on first glance seems to borrow heavily from fallout you would think that this movie would be inevitably good. Unfortunately what we get is something along the lines of Fallout crossed with Narnia and covered in a heaping load of pretentiousness.
Now, all I'm trying to sleepily strain out here is this: Please, for god sake, do something original