Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)

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Believe it or not, I was hopeful for the remake of “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”. While I was never a fan of Tim Burton (I’ve always considered him over rated), I was hoping Burton’s take on the story would be entertaining and very amusing, but alas, Burton botches yet another remake. For those whom may not remember, Burton  completely botched the remake of “Planet of the Apes” which went from a thought provoking allegory about society to a dumbed down teen science fiction film. Now, granted, I did give it a good review, it was based mostly on the cast and make up.

Either way, don’t believe the excuses of the hardcore Burton fan boys, this is a remake in every sense of the word, but Burton goes in the hall of fame of directors whom just couldn’t top the original masterpiece.

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Elektra (2005)

elektra_2005_500x375_279977Going in to pissed off fan boy mode in 3, 2, 1: So, here’s a history lesson in case you wanted it or not. Elektra, pre-Hollywoodization, was a beautiful but incredibly vicious warrior. She had depth, and personality and humanity, and was forced to turn against her beliefs when Bullseye, the psychotic killer murdered her beloved father in front of her eyes. Elektra blamed Daredevil for not helping when he could have and trained with the Hand to become a warrior. She returned to stalk Daredevil and fell in love with him. She was killed at the hands of Bullseye and returned as an undead warrior, more vicious than ever. All of this made possible by Frank Miller.

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Fantastic Four (2005)

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In spite of what many, many others think, I kind of like the original “Fantastic Four” directed by Roger Corman. It’s pretty damn bad, but for entertainment value, it’s so bad it’s good. Well, this new adaptation is basically in the same boat. It’s so poor quality it works only as a guilty pleasure. Word to wise, some times some comic book series shouldn’t be made in to movies, because it will be lost in the translation. Example one. Face it, while “Fantastic Four” was good on the page, you have to take in to consideration that film is extremely literal. And sometimes this type of material just shouldn’t be put to the page. What I found pretty humorous was that during the release, the producers made is perfectly clear, “This is not The Incredibles” over and over to crowds comparing the two.

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National Treasure (2004)

national-treasureColossal best-seller (and I can say colossal when it’s number one for nearly two-hundred weeks) “The Davinci Code” is going to experience the “adapted to the big screen” treatment in a little under a year, and the much anticipated adaptation has drawn much expectations from its hardcore following. But leave it to Disney to rip from its innards and offer up their own generic carbon copy. One major vitriol I had from the release that many critics haven’t exactly touched on was that “National Treasure” is an antecedent as a concept. Never have I seen such a blatant, and shameless rip-off of “The Davinci Code” before, but this is Disney for you. Rather then licking their wounds, they invented an American version of the same story.

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Vampires: The Turning (2005)

vampires-the-turning-475-16x9-largeTrilogies are perhaps the most unusual presence in filmmaking because there’s rarely ever a chance that all three films within the triangle will be good. Take for example the “Vampires” trilogy which I can imagine that the producers asked to add the moniker of “Vampires” to the film to make it a trilogy. But in any case it’s a trilogy and a sad one at that. “The Turning” ends up becoming more stupid than actually awful, and I’ve always thought series were supposed to lengthen the story, and not shy away from it. “Vampires” originally made by Carpenter was a very strong vampire film, then there was “Los Muertos” which was a really bad (A vampire munching on a man’s genitals? Please) but enjoyable bit of vampire fodder, and then there’s… this.

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Ocean’s Twelve (2004)

I’m going to take a breath, and scream a few “Serenity now” chants before I begin bashing this, because if I don’t, I will unleash a tirade of swears, and vulgar one-liners that will make Lenny Bruce blush in his grave, and make your screen explode. To put it simply “Ocean’s Twelve” or “Whoring actors wanted a giant paycheck”, is the general zeitgeist of the film era. Take a bunch of big name actors, a few veterans, flash a lot of money in their face, and get them to come back for an incredibly forced sequel with an incredibly horrible plotline that not only stretches the creative line thin, but force feeds us an inane ridiculous set of events that never amount up to anything worth watching.

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War of the Worlds (2005)

WOTWSpielberg has always shy away from making films involving aliens that were actually aggressive. His was a role to make the aliens more human friendly, and kind, so it was quite a surprise when he signed on to direct this remake which featured prominently aggressive aliens exterminating the human race. As much I truly wanted to hate this remake–and I really did–I couldn’t deny that this was one hell of a film, that only Spielberg could have mustered up. It’s another remake, sure, but I actually managed to like it a lot.

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