I’m starting to worry that the movie industry is starting to run out of original ideas. Sure, occassionally something original will come out (Napoleon Dynamite (2004) for example), but mostly smaller movie companies are producing those.
Remake after remake are hitting the screen. Look around - you’ll start seeing previews for remakes of Alfie (coming to theaters), The Manchurian Candidate (2004) (coming to DVD soon), Dawn Of The Dead (2004) (came out last week on DVD) and now, The Stepford Wives (not to mention planned remakes of The Amityville Horror, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory (2005), King Kong, War Of The Worlds (2005) and many more).
The big question audiences should be focusing on with these remakes isn’t if Hollywood is beginning to run out of original ideas. No, instead we should be focusing on just one thing - are they worth seeing (again)?
The Stepford Wives, like most of the other remakes around lately, contains a star-studded cast. From Christopher Walken, Bette Midler and Glenn Close to Nicole Kidman and Matthew Broderick, the stars abound - and they all do a pretty good job in the roles they’ve been given.
Nicole Kidman, as usual, stands above the rest in terms of her acting skills, but unlike a few of her other films, the others do a pretty good job of keeping up.
Glenn, as usual, is a bit overdramatic - she’s one of those actors who tries just a bit too hard, and it shows.
Christopher Walken (who will always be fondly remembered for his roles in True Romance and Pulp Fiction), also does a decent job in his role. Sure, it’s not up to the high bar he set with the roles mentioned above, but he adds just the right tinge of evil to his character to help keep the viewer intrigued.
Matthew Broderick, on the other hand, seems to be miscast in this film. He never really clicks with Nicole, and, while looking as if he’s about to cry throughout almost the whole film, shows almost no emotional attachment whatsover to Nicole. It drags the movie down, and really detracts from the climactic finale.
The plot is well written, and Director Frank Oz (isn’t he Yoda?) tries to move the story along quick enough that viewers don’t get bored, while at the same time keeping the pace slow enough that the viewer has time to digest what they’ve seen. He has fine-tuned his ability to show just enough to keep the viewer guessing, but not enough to give everything away.
Since the film is a remake, that’s doubly difficult here (since most of the viewers already know what’s wrong with the Stepford wives), but he still manages to make the film quite enjoyable.
Frank Oz fine-tunes the pace of the film to keep the viewer intrigued throughout, and leads up to the climactic finale with the viewer still sticking around for the ride. That’s not to say this new Stepford film is perfect, however.
The miscast Broderick drags down the film in some important moments, and some of the scenes are a bit unbelievable in the scope of the film. With these new flaws, the new Stepford wives are no more perfect than the last ones were - but they’re good enough to spend an hour-and-a-half with.
Loading ...
