Cliffhanger Remake?

can you really improve on this?

Earlier this week the world was informed that StudioCanal have decided to remake the 90's Stallone action film Cliffhanger. I have decided that I have a problem with this.

My problem doesn't lie in the fact that Hollywood insists on plundering my 13-year-old self's favorite films, or that remakes simply have a tendency to suck. It lies in the fact that a remake of a 90's action film does not make any sense in the current global political context.

First, a history lesson: the modern American action genre is cut up into three distinct time periods. These periods are: 

1. The post-Vietnam war, Reaganite 80's;

2. The post-Soviet 90's; and 

3. The Globalised, post 9-11, technophilic 2000's.

The first category refers to films like Rambo II, Missing in Action, and Commando. These films feature a lone, muscular protagonist (Stallone, Norris and Schwarzenegger respectively) who singlehandedly takes on entire armies and wins. These films are influenced heavily by the United States' loss in Vietnam, and can be seen as Hollywood trying to overcome America's loss by symbolically claiming victory. Lots of blood, gore, and one-dimensional characterisation ensues.

Films like Die Hard, True Lies and Cliffhanger belong in the second category. In these films, the location has moved from foreign soil to the heartland of America. Where the films of the first category were about America asserting its values overseas, these ones are about America defending itself from foreign invaders. Again, the defense is performed with characteristic gusto. The baddies tend to die in increasingly spectacular fashion. In Cliffhanger, you have a good, honest American rock climber dispatching baddies in many awesome and varied ways: impaling them on stalactites, crushing them in avalanches, etc. etc. Each death is more spectacular than the last.

The third and most recent category is the exact opposite of the first two. Included in this are films like the Bourne Identity and Casino Royale. In these films, the protagonist is not particularly muscular and does not serve as a symbol of American values. The character of Jason Bourne for example does not even know at the beginning of his adventure if he is American or French or English or Russian or whatever. The action sequences are often shot with a handheld camera give a sense of gritty realism. There is lots of interaction with sophisticated technology: mobile phones and laptops becoming the tool of the hero as opposed to the simple yet effective weaponry of earlier action films.

The films of the first two categories reflect a simplistic "us vs. them" political landscape. The enemy is clear, and what must be done to them is even clearer: kill them and then say something glib. Films of the third category offer a murkier morality, where the distinctions between the goodies and baddies are hard to define. The action is less of a spectacle, forgoing the unnecessary brutality that make films in category one and two such simple-minded entertainment.

I guess my point for this post is this: now that action films have com this far there is no going back. A studio that attempts to remake a film like Cliffhanger does so to it's own detriment. If they keep the same basic layout, then they find themselves a decade too late thematically and aesthetically. If they choose to 'modernise' the plot by Bournifying it they lose the essence of the original film. Gabe Walker can never be Jason Bourne. 

My bet is that the studio will be having the good guys texting each other constantly and using smartphones to update their facebook status shot with a shakey, hand-held camera. There will be a Jack Bauer-esque interrogation scene where the good guys torture a baddie in order to find out where a WMD is. Gone will be the smug remarks after an enemy gets horribly and spectacularly killed. Gone will be a muscular Stallone, replaced by Shia Labeouf or some other skinny white boy. Gone will be the simplicity of the 'kill all the bad guys and everything will be alright' mentality. Gone will be Cliffhanger, replaced by some thing that is definitely not Cliffhanger.

Leave the goddamn film where it is. This remake cannot work. 

Star Trek

When talking about the new Star Trek reboot, it is important to make a distinction between the words ‘reboot’ and ‘remake’.

‘Remake’ is a word that Hollywood has been particularly trigger happy with in the past decade. The noughties have seen many remakes, particularly of horror films from the seventies. Remakes show a tendency to want to pillage the past, to take a well-known name like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and slap a fresh bunch of attractive faces onto it, add some computer generated effects and slow motion, and make a whole bunch of cynical, dirty, money.

Apart from a few exceptions, if a movie is a remake it is undeniably awful. Case and point: Steve Martin pirouetting on the grave of comic genius Peter Sellers in 2006’s The Pink Panther. The best advice anyone can get about a remake is to leave it alone. Don’t spend your money seeing it. Just ignore it. Hopefully it will go away.

A ‘reboot’ on the other hand is often an unexpected and glorious occasion. A reboot takes a long running series and says “screw it, let’s start from the beginning.” While this process can be stressful for hardcore fans of the show, what often results is a solid and vastly improved piece of entertainment. The most successful example of a series reboot in recent years is Chris Nolan’s peerless re-jigging of Batman with the formidable one-two punch of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. A duo of films that will surely go down in history as the greatest series reboot of all time. The reboot of the old, camp seventies sci-fi franchise has also been done successfully before with Ron Moore’s brilliant Battlestar Galactica. Which took everything that was bad about the original series and threw it away, adding in political intrigue, emotionally complex characters and biting social commentary to sweeten the deal.

It was with great hope that I went into the cinema to see J.J. Abrams new take on Star Trek. To put it simply: my expectations were met and surpassed. With its fast pace, charming cast and gorgeous special effects Star Trek is a fantastic and cinematic piece of entertainment.

Abrams’ direction takes the franchise into the new millennium by fashioning a plotline that completely removes any need for the story to maintain the mythos of the original series. This is done while including enough references to the original that it doesn’t completely alienate the existing fans. That being said, the hardcore Trekkies are still finding plenty to complain about. On every Trek forum on the internet you will find the hate fueled bile-sprayings of jilted fans who have made it their duty to diligently list everything that is wrong with the film, and everything that they would do to Mr. Abrams if they ever saw him on the street.

Ignore these people. They won’t ever go away, but pretend they aren’t there.

Star Trek is awesome, and I can’t wait for the inevitable sequel.

All hail the series reboot!

My Score : four buckets of fanboy bile out of five.

Stones from Underground

"People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones"

 

This saying rings with the same “do as you’re told” banality of most adages. It carries with it a moral wrapped in a simple watered down version of reality: “don’t you criticise anyone or you’ll be criticised yourself”.

 

Here’s my point: Screw That.

The Internet is all about providing a place where angry nerds can fling spiteful tirades at whoever they please and happily expect no response in return. Except for maybe the angry agreement of other nerds.

This is why I have called my blog “Stones from Underground”. If I can’t throw stones from inside my glass house, then I’m just going to have to throw them from a place no one can see.

 

Throwing stones from underground is what blogging is.

 

In this world of political turmoil, international grief, economic downturn, what do I choose to blog about? Movies.

 

Why?

Because they are important.

 

They don’t have the same tangible effect on people’s lives as losing your job or having a bomb dropped on your head.

 

Their importance is larger than individual happenings.

 

Films tell us about the world we live in, culturally and politically. The fact that Hollywood is producing action films like the Bourne Identity these days as opposed to the Stallone/Schwarzenegger kill-fests of the Reagan-omic eighties tells us something about how America has changed. They tell us about how our world has changed.

Films affect and reflect the world we live in. Let’s throw stones at them.