Weekend Roundtable: Best & Worst Movie Reboots

With a new ‘Transporter’ reboot in theaters and the ‘Mad Max’ reboot hitting Blu-ray this week, now seems like a good time to evaluate some other famous movie franchise reboots. Which ones worked out for the best, and which really didn’t?

Before we begin, we should clarify that we’re specifically looking for franchise reboots, in which a multi-sequel movie series is restarted with a new lead actor and a new (or at least modified) plot. We want to distinguish this from a simple one-off remake.

‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ = Reboot. Correct!
‘Total Recall’ = Remake. Not what we’re discussing here.
‘Fantastic Four’ = Yes, that’s a reboot all right.
‘Annie’ = C’mon, you know that’s just a remake.

M. Enois Duarte

Best:Mad Max: Fury Road‘ is by far one of the most exciting motion pictures I’ve watched on the big screen in many years. I love George Miller’s vision of a post-apocalyptic civilization that has gone completely off its rocker. Max is a silent figure who just wants to be left alone, away from the insanity, but gets dragged into the pandemonium by a series of circumstances. Like the War Boys chant when willingly jumping at the opportunity for self-sacrifice, Max stands witness to the madness. And Charlize Theron’s Furiosa, for me, is one of the best badass heroes to grace the silver screen since Ellen Ripley. I absolutely love her!

Worst: The ‘Jurassic World‘ reboot was pretty disappointing. As much as the movie delivers on dinosaurs escaping their cages and running rampant, it’s just a lame story that tries oh-so-hard to be clever and self-aware but is ultimately humorless with characters we care absolutely nothing about. Bryce Dallas Howard is irritating and poor Chris Pratt is neutered of his usual appeal.

Shannon Nutt

Best: Even if you hated (as I did) the sequel that followed it, I don’t think there’s any denying that 2009’s ‘Star Trek‘ reboot is one heck of a good movie. Directed by J.J. Abrams (who is currently busy relaunching another sci-fi franchise you may have heard of), the film recasts the original crew of the TV/movie series with actors who don’t just remind viewers of their original counterparts, but also manage to make the characters their own. The movie also made a smart move by bringing back Leonard Nimoy as “Spock Prime,” with just enough of a connection to the original series that die-hard fans could see the film as a continuation (in an alternate timeline) instead of a simple re-imagining.

Worst: The worst kind of reboots are the ones where there’s no need at all to one-up the original movies. That’s certainly the case with 2006’s ‘The Pink Panther‘, where Hollywood had the gall to think it could outdo the original brilliant performance by Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau. Instead of trying to make the character his own, star Steve Martin just imitates what Sellers did – and as talented as Martin is, he’s no Peter Sellers. The biggest travesty here is not that this movie got made, but that so did a sequel, which I’ll confess to never watching, although I’m guessing it was more of the same. You know what they say: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…

Adam Tyner (DVDTalk)

Worst: I think I get the Movie Math. The original ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ spawned the New Line Cinema empire, and it was produced for less than two million dollars. Now, multiply the budget twentyfold, slather on a CGI spit-and-polish, and it’s destined for a $250 million gross worldwide, right?

On paper, Platinum Dunes’ ‘Nightmare on Elm Street‘ reboot sounds phenomenal. The series’ nightmarish dreamscapes cry out for modern-day visual effects. As the original franchise chugged along, Freddy devolved into a campy, one-liner spouting machine, and this reboot sought to return him to the horrifying predator he once was. Fresh off his iconic performance as Rorschach in ‘Watchmen’ and having been nominated for an Oscar for similarly grim material in ‘Little Children’, Jackie Earle Haley certainly seemed like a brilliant choice to don that charred fedora and razor-fingered glove. In practice, though, this reboot wound up being one cringe-inducing misfire after another.

Not all of the original film’s effects work aged well, but it was artfully crafted in a way that the low-rent, overused CGI in the reboot couldn’t match. One of the original Nightmare’s most enduring visuals was really nothing more than Robert Englund leaning into a sheet of spandex. The reboot tries to improve it with a cartoonish head swirling around the room – an effect that literally cost many thousands of times more to realize – and it’s embarrassingly inept by comparison.

The same goes for all of the original film’s most enduring visuals, every last one of which is mangled here. A sleeping blonde is still violently flung around her bedroom, but Kris’ clumsy wirework here is no match for Tina’s rotating room from a quarter-century earlier. Wes Craven brought a haunting, surreal quality to the body bag invisibly being lifted and dragged across the halls of Nancy’s high school, and it’s an image that’s forever seared into my mind. The bland, forgettable redux here is more of an “Eh, whatever” shrug. The original film made it a point to blur the lines separating the real world and Freddy’s nightmares, to the point where we never really knew if we could trust what we were seeing. The remake sllllooooowwwwwllllly dials down the saturation to make it painfully, unmistakably clear that someone’s about to be slaughtered, stomping all over one of the franchise’s greatest strengths. The undercurrent of Freddy preying on the false security of suburbia – on an entire town, an entire community – has been axed as well. The reboot also introduces a more medically-inspired threat of sleep deprivation, but I defy you to say “micronap” over and over and have it sound even a little bit ominous.

Heather Langenkamp’s version of Nancy boasted a strength, resolve and resourcefulness that Rooney Mara’s character can’t hope to match. Never mind the fact that Langenkamp’s character was soon left with no one to rely on but herself. Mara remains the Final Girl, but she has a sidekick helping her out the entire time. Both Nancys dream up similar plans to drag Freddy kicking and screaming into our world, but Mara’s not really one for thinking things through. She doesn’t even bring a weapon to combat a razor-fingered psychopath, with her doe-eyed buddy grabbing something off the floor as an afterthought at the last possible moment.

Freddy himself is a letdown as well. Jackie Earle Haley excels as a living, breathing Freddy, but he woefully lacks Robert Englund’s physicality and presence when it’s time to turn evil. It doesn’t help that the more realistic burn makeup robs Freddy of any real expressiveness, and his slow, bassy, monotone growl sounds more like Eeyore unchained than any sort of horror icon. Someone dozes off, colors get awfully dreary, there’s some monotone belch from Freddy, and he slashes his glove. Lather, rinse, yawn, repeat.

Best: On the other hand, I’m genuinely a fan of Platinum Dunes’ reboot of ‘Friday the 13th‘, which plays like the best parts of the first few ‘Friday’ flicks distilled down to 100 minutes. It’s so all-killer-no-filler that the title card doesn’t even show up until close to a half hour in: too much havoc to wreak, too many boobs to jiggle, and too many barrel drums of blood to slosh around to be bothered before that. Even better, the reboot goes for practical splatter over CGI whenever it can. Its final moments are sloppy in the worst ways, and its industrial chug is a far cry from Henry Manfredini’s iconic score, but otherwise, it’s about as perfect a take on ‘Friday the 13th’ as I could ever have hoped to see.

Luke Hickman

Best: Christopher Nolan hadn’t become a household name by the time he started working on ‘Batman Begins‘. I recall the indie filmmaker’s fans being excited for the reboot, but that was about it. Before any footage had been seen, the sentiment regarding the fresh start wasn’t all that different from the way moviegoers looked at the recent ‘Fantastic Four’ reboot. It wasn’t until the first footage was released that the general excitement spread. I remember the extended trailer airing during a commercial break of a WB (now CW) show, probably ‘Smallville’. The footage was fantastic and the movie itself not only didn’t disappoint, but it met and exceeded expectations. Somehow, unlike most sequels, the franchise only got better with each installment. (Yes, I’m in the rare group that LOVES ‘The Dark Knight Rises’.) And it all started with ‘Batman Begins’.

Worst: The ‘Evil Dead’ movies are absolutely perfect. They never needed to be touched, let alone bastardized like they were in 2013 ‘Evil Dead‘ reboot. Instead of replicating the tone/feel/humor of the originals, the reboot applied the story to the standard run-of-the-mill shock horror mold. Possibly even worse are the performances by the terrible and mostly unknown cast members. The only good thing to come of this travesty is the fact that it’s such a bad movie that it’s extremely easy to forget.

Brian Hoss

Worst: I can come up with very little that’s redeeming about Tim Burton’s ‘Planet of the Apes‘ from 2001.

Best: In comparison, ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes‘ has great characters and a fun story to tell. The recent sequel, ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes‘, manages to build on that while again picking up the series’ themes in an entertaining way, and succeeds where the old ‘Battle for the Planet of the Apes’ failed. I think ‘Rise’ rushed a lot of major events, but ‘Dawn’ manages to explore the transition between the human-led era and the ape-led planet, as well as the leadership of Caesar in terms of building a flawed ape society. That’s a very dry description for a movie with loads of action and some wonderful tension.

Looking back, Burton’s movie, which came after years of unfinished ‘Apes’ projects, was so bad and so muddled that it must have served as an important lesson for the next reboot. I think Burton’s movie wants viewers to be wowed by the look of the apes, but has no concept of compelling characters or an interesting ape world. Both ‘Rise’ and ‘Dawn’ work hard to present situations worth imagining. Considering that the ‘Apes’ movies are less straightforward in their appeal than a superhero movie or any number of zombie/vampire/robot/spaceship franchises, ‘Rise’ and ‘Dawn’ have to be my Best.

Josh Zyber

Best: In a sense, the James Bond franchise gets rebooted every time the lead actor is recast. However, through its first 40 years, the series always came with a tacit understanding that Sean Connery and George Lazenby and Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan were all meant to be the same James Bond, and that (though the continuity may be a little fuzzy and malleable) the man who lived through the events of ‘Dr. No’ was still battling bad guys in the regrettable ‘Die Another Day’. 2006’s ‘Casino Royale‘ was the first Bond movie to explicitly break that continuity and start over, by presenting a rookie Bond on his first assignment as a Double-0 agent. It was a risky move, and in a lot of ways it shouldn’t have worked at all. Amazingly, director Martin Campbell and new star Daniel Craig managed to pull it off and brush away most of the cobwebs of stale formula that had bogged down the franchise in its prior few movies.

Worst: I’ve complained about Bryan Singer’s ‘Superman Returns‘ in previous Roundtables (here’s one), so I won’t belabor that too much here. This movie is just an utterly misguided and tedious misfire that spends so much time aping Richard Donner’s first ‘Superman’ film that it forgets to be its own thing, and then turns the Man of Steel into a deadbeat dad and creepy stalker.

Tell us your picks for best and worst movie reboots in the Comments.

The blog will be closed on Monday for the Labor Day holiday. We’ll see you back here on Tuesday.

39 comments

  1. Stallone’s Judge Dredd = bad, look at my pretty face and pretty blue eyes (although not without its charms)
    Urban’s Dredd= badass, gritty. Don’t look at my face, just my scowl before I shoot you!

  2. Chris B

    I actually really liked The Amazing Spiderman reboot from Marc Webb. I think it blows Raimi’s outta the water.

    I also liked Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit a lot to. People shit all over it when it came out but it’s way more entertaining than some of the other movies in the Jack Ryan franchise.

    Luke, I agree with you on Batman Begins but I have to say I think your criticisms of Evil Dead are misguided. In the original trilogy it wasn’t until the second film that the creators embraced the humor/slapstick element. The first evil dead was made to be a straight up horror movie and whatever humor there was was most likely unintentional or exists as a result of the low budget. To fault the remake for lacking in humor is a bit unfair. I agree with you on some of the performances being mediocre but overall, I think the movie is unfairly maligned by most.

  3. NJScorpio

    Since the WORST, in my opinion, as already been mentioned (A Nightmare On Elm St), I’ll just mention…

    BEST: The Muppets (2011). After years of direct to VHS sequels, and just generally falling out of popularity, it was great to see (once again) a Muppet movie that viewers of any age can enjoy. The success can be seen in the great cast found in Muppets Most Wanted, and that a new Muppets show is coming soon.

  4. Chaz

    Wow, specifically to Luke….

    Evil Dead was something that shouldnt have been as good as it was, being a huge fan of Campbell and the original films, I thought for sure this remake was going to be a complete waste of time. But instead I was floored at where they took this thing, especially down such a serious dark path. Sure you can bitch and moan that its missing the camp and humor that the others had but to me it isnt a valid enough excuse. The remake showed how good a serious take on this material can be, with amazing gore FX and to me, excellent performances from an unknown crowd of nobodies. The main girl was fantastic in her transformation and the parallels they used with her drug abuse and detox to being possessed and her friends really believing she was trying to get out of all of this intervention crap again was a pretty genius way of setting up whats to come. And man, that insanely crazy finale was fantastic, I cant disagree enough with this being picked as the worst remake, this thing defied most people’s expectations and for me, delivered on just about everything, enough so that I proudly put it right next to the others on my shelf.

    But to say this was the worst right after you say how much you loved the plot hole riddled Dark Knight Rises? I honestly cant figure out how Nolan went from such a great reboot (which yes I agree is one of the best) to the amazing, seriously amazing Dark Knight to the patch work mess that was Rises, Nolan has an amazing track record and he’s currently up there as one of my favorite directors of all time….which is what hurts me the most to see how horrible that movie turned out. when I first saw it, I was on the train like everyone else, the spectacle and Nolan feel was there, it was great. But after watching it again for a second time, I realized how bad the script was and how asinine so many people were in that movie, the things that people do and how magic seems to help Batman get back into a completely fortified city from somewhere completely across the world was just mind numbingly bad. And thats coming from someone who is a fan of his ending for Interstellar…:)

  5. Bolo

    For ones that haven’t been mentioned yet:

    I quite liked ‘Shaft 2000’. I guess it’s technically a sequel since Roundtree is in there as the original John Shaft and Sam Jackson is playing his nephew of the same name. But if you’re willing to count ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ and ‘Fury Road’ as reboots, then I’ll count this one as a reboot, too. Sam Jackson wasn’t the obvious successor to Richard Roundtree as John Shaft. I think Wesley Snipes would probably be the actor who would’ve fit the mould the best. Roundtree was handsome and smooth, whereas Jackson (bringing his Sam Jackson persona) was a cranky hot-head and somewhat homely. But I liked that. I liked that they let a different type of actor put his own stamp on the role. The tone is just grounded enough to be engaging and light enough to be fun. Christian Bale and Jeffery Wright are a ton of fun as the totally hissable villains. The plot keeps moving and never loses track of its pieces. I always get a kick out of this movie and wish it had spawned a couple sequels.

    If either or both of the American attempts at a ‘Godzilla’ movie count as reboots, then they are among the worst I’ve seen. The more recent one at least had solid atmosphere and a couple good monster moments, but then there was another 90 minutes of boring human characters doing pointless stupid things and a plot that never seems to figure out how to make them relevant.

  6. Deaditelord

    Luke, you do remember that the Evil Dead movies didn’t start introducing the comedic elements until Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn? The original Evil Dead was a hardcore horror movie that also shocked audiences with it’s over-the-top violence. The remake does a decent job of matching this tone and while the lack of Bruce Campbell is noticeable, I was still pleasantly surprised by how the remake turned out. It’s certainly not as bad as some other remakes I can think of (cough… The Wicker Man… cough… Psycho… cough).

    As to the best remake, while I like CSM’s selection of Dredd (where’s the sequel?), I would still place David Cronenberg’s remake of The Fly at the top of the list. In fact, I would go so far as to say his remake is vastly superior to the original movie.

      • Deaditelord

        Doh! Don’t know how I missed that part of the post, although I do think of Evil Dead as more of a remake than a reboot. Anyway, since we are limited to reboots, I would echo the choices of Dredd and Casino Royale for best and Nightmare on Elm Street as the worst reboot I actually watched. (I’m not going to subject myself to the Fantastic Four.)

  7. Bill

    Best/Worst. Hard to say.

    But I can at least add some “good” vs “bad” on the basis of – do I look forward to watching the reboot? Or do I dread eventually forcing my way through it? Actually – I do have a few nominations for worst.

    Mission Impossible = good. The movies are a good reboot of the series, not based on the quality of the scripts, but simply based on the fact that – yes – I still look forward to watching the next one, whatever it may be.

    The Equalizer = good. The first movie is a good reboot of the series (it captured the essence of the TV show) – and a second movie is planned for 2017.

    The Man From U.N.C.L.E. = bad. This movie was an attempt at a reboot (it may only qualify as a remake because I doubt it will have a sequel). The movie seemed understated – even dull at times. Not awful, but not good enough to look forward to another one.

    Conan = I suspect it’s bad? The original movies are classics. I just don’t think anyone could replace the original characters/actors. SO I still haven’t forced myself to watch the reboot.

    Disney’s Witch Mountain series (Escape to Witch Mountain, Return from Witch Mountain) = I suspect it’s bad? Once again – I still haven’t forced myself to watch the reboot.

    Worst reboot: Highlander. (the movie – the reboot that hasn’t been filmed yet). I really enjoyed the TV series, which was basically a sequel to the first movie. But wait? You ask – where is the reboot? It’s coming. They keep promising to make a completely new/rebooted Highlander movie (maybe to begin filming in 2015 or 2016?). Given the quality of all Highlander movies after the first, I preemptively nominate the Highlander reboot as the worst reboot ever (even though it hasn’t been filmed yet). And I feel safe in this nomination. This is another case where it’s partly because the original characters/actors were so perfect/iconic that they can never be replaced. But it’s also because every movie since the original has gone down a steep slope in terms of quality. Case in point – the “final” movie in the original run – “Highlander: The Source” – ended up being released as a Sci-Fi channel movie-of-the-week (the worst possible insult to a movie – much worse than straight-to-video…). Given how great the original was compared to the expected awful quality of the reboot earns this reboot the “worst” reboot award.

    Worst reboot – runner up – 21 Jump Street. The TV series was pretty darned good. The first movie? Not good, and not at all respectful to the tone or intent of the original series. (First movie = reboot, not sequel to the series – since it contradicted canon from the series). The 2nd movie? Awful. Horrible awful. I-can’t-believe-I-watched-as-much-of-it-as-I-did awful. If the first movie in the series wasn’t enough to convince you that this was an awful reboot, the second movie had to have been enough.

    • Bolo

      I did see the ‘Conan’ reboot. It was a very mediocre movie and not worth watching. It suffered the most for being a so-so remake of a movie I consider a masterpiece.

      The people making it kept promoting it with the worn-out line they were going to get back to the source material for a purist adaptation, which they didn’t really do. They just remade the Schwarzenegger film, which although a great film, takes its own path from Howard’s stories.

      Sadly, ‘Conan The Destroyer’ is the closest to Howard’s stories, but I consider it to be very poorly executed.

  8. Dredd was my good reboot, now for my bad reboot. Geez, the pickins’ are slim!
    2013’s Texas Chainsaw – Although it’s supposed to be a sequel, it’s also a reboot as they’ve decided to pretend like TCM2 and Leatherface never happened. Of all the TCM movies made, this is easily the worst. Messed up time line which is really sloppy, 3D which doesn’t exploit the full potential of a chainsaw wielding maniac, if there’s one thing it had going for it, it was that. A guy gets thrown in a meat grinder, and no meaty debris flies at the viewer, come on!! When the lead actress decides to help out her cousin Leatherface from the dumbest and lamest villains, she tosses a chainsaw at him and utters one of the most cringe inducing lines I’ve ever heard,” Do your thing, cuz!” There’s another ‘Chainsaw’ movie in the works, this time another prequel or origin. This will make the 8th entry in the franchise and could end up being the the worst, but for now ‘Texas Chainsaw’ holds that position in my book.

  9. Hey Shannon, I hate to be ‘that guy’, but: “who is currently busy relaunching another sci-fi franchise you may have heard of” => Star Wars is not science fiction, because there’s no science involved. It’s a space fantasy, or a space opera, if you will.

  10. Rick Walz

    Great read and Adam analysis of the Nightmare on Elm Street reboot it spot on.

    But can we get a new tern for what ever Mad Max & Star Trek are. They are not reboots. Just because they have a new cast does not make it a reboot. By that criteria Batman & Robin is a reboot as is Harry Potter 3 since we get a new Dumbledore.

    Mad Max is the same Max we know and love he still has those injuries from the previous films. Star Trek continues the universe. From Spock’s (Nimoy) point of view all of the events are chronological.

    The new Vacation is not a reboot, All of the others movies have happened. Why is new Terminator not considered a reboot? It has mostly new cast. It only retains as much cast as Star Trek does.

    Friday the 13th
    Nightmare on Elm Street
    Amazing Spider-man
    Fantastic Four
    All reboots. All ignore previous movies and each is hoping to launch a franchise.

    Point Break
    Cape Fear
    Total Recall
    All Remakes. One offs that ignore any previous movie.

    Star Trek 2009
    Mad Max 2015
    Jurassic World
    It may have been a while, and some cast has changed, but we are continuing the same story.

    • Clemery

      Yeah… I was starting to wonder if the definition of reboot was changed… Jurassic World is a sequel. Mad Max Fury Road is a sequel. Star Trek was a prequel. Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes was a prequel.

      I would have thought a reboot is re-starting an existing franchise (not single movie) from scratch… perhaps revisiting the original story, perhaps creating a completely new story. While I consider a remake to effectively be a reboot of a solo film that is not part of an existing franchise.

      • Josh Zyber
        Author

        IMO, a reboot is an attempt to relaunch the franchise with a new cast. Whether they attempt to stick to the original continuities or not, I would consider both Fury Road and Jurassic World to be reboots. The intent behind both is to create a new series of movies featuring the new cast.

        Star Trek is definitely a reboot, no question about that. The tiny tether of continuity it holds with the older movies is window dressing at best. It cannot be called a prequel given that it explicitly discards everything that happened in the original TV show and movies.

        • Clemery

          So does that suggest The Phantom Menace is a reboot of Star Wars? 17 years after Jedi, Lucas attempts to relaunch the franchise with a new cast, taking note (mostly) of continuities of the original trilogy.

          Robocop, Total Recall, Evil Dead… remakes or reboots?

          How do you define a remake then, and what differentiates it from a reboot?

          Not looking to judge, just trying to get on the same wavelength.

          • Bolo

            I think they do make it clear at the top of the page that they apply the term “reboot” to a series and “remake” to a single entry standalone film. So then ‘Robocop’ would be a reboot because there were three films in the original series and the new film starts that story over again with the hope of having more new sequels. ‘Total Recall’ would be a remake because there was only ever one story and the new version simply retold it.

            I guess the grey zone would be stuff like ‘The Punisher’, which has had three attempts of launching a film series each with a different actor, but none of them ever produced one sequel. Or ‘Ocean’s 11’ which wasn’t a series the first time, but its remake produced sequels.

          • William Henley

            Well, that would practically make Batman Begins gray area, because they kept recasting Batman in the previous movies. (that is considering we didn’t also have TDK and TDKR)

      • Bolo

        I probably agree with Clemery’s definitions the most. I think a reboot has to more-or-less start the narrative over from scratch, even if it means retelling events in the same way that they were told in previous films.

        Simply recasting, adding new characters, or waiting a long time to make a sequel doesn’t define something as a reboot to me.

        • Clemery

          Thinking further about this… I would say that one of the key considerations as to whether something is a reboot/remake or a sequel/prequel to the original franchise is whether the new film exists in the same universe as the originals.

          As such, Evil Dead is clearly in the reboot/remake territory, while the likes of Jurassic World and Mad Max are simply returning to the world that has already been created in other films, and in the case of Mad Max, Miller clearly had no choice but to cast a younger actor in the role, since Mel is likely just too old – and now unpopular – to pull it off perhaps. Personally I think an older Max in Fury Road could have worked a bit better, as I don’t really dig Hardy in that role.

          Marvel are kinda developing the ‘shared universe’ genre as they go along, and it is working pretty well so far (although I am only a fan of a few entries)… it will be interesting to see how the shared universe concept evolves over time and how other studios tackle it.

          • Csm101

            I tend to think Gibson not being cast was more because of the drama surrounding his life and not his age. I loved the shit out of Fury Road and I loved Tom Hardy, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss Mel. Even a cool blink and you’ll miss it cameo with him as one of the war boys getting thrown off a car would’ve made my day, but I totally get why he wasn’t in it.

          • Bolo

            I also just didn’t really connect with Hardy’s performance in ‘Fury Road’, but still really liked the movie. I would’ve preferred old man Mel.

            Also, Hardy’s youth kinda makes the timeline a bit wonky. They keep the backstory that Max was a cop with a young daughter before the apocalypse. But Hardy only looks about 35, meaning the apocalypse happened about ten years ago at the most. The world in ‘Fury Road’ seems like it’s been post-apocalyptic a lot longer than that. Joe has built a civilization that seems like people are born and raised in it. Was he off building his cult before the apocalypse happened? Furiosa was abducted from her tribe as a child and raised in Joe’s cult, so did that happen before the apocalypse, too? It’s no big deal because the movie was awesome. Just kinda wierd when you think about it.

  11. Rob

    I will never get all the hate for “Superman Returns”. I think Singer achieved what he set out to do beautiful.
    Capturing the style and tone of the Donner movies. Sure, the story could have been better. But given the chance
    to do another movie or two, Singer could have really nailed it. It’s only a million times better Zack Snyder’s “Man of Steel”.

    • Shannon Nutt

      I think both Superman reboots have issues, but I think Snyder’s is more ‘watchable’ than Singer’s. At least Superman throws a punch in Snyder’s version. 😉

      • Opinionhaver

        Superman Returns is a direct sequel to Superman II anyway, so it doesn’t belong in this list just because it ignored III and IV.

      • Clemery

        I watched Man Of Steel for the third time yesterday, and I just don’t think much of it at all.

        It may or may not be true to the lore (I am not a huge comic fan, so can’t comment here), but as a movie it is pretty dull. For starters, I find the constant bouncing around between timelines a real distraction, and I think it would worked better as a more linear experience. And a lot of these scenes often seemed to skip over bits of information or action that, as a viewer, I felt was integral to the experience. I am typically a fan of origin stories, and although I am fully familiar with Superman’s origin from the Richard Donner originals, Kal El’s journey in this film just failed to incite any awe or wonderment, thanks largely due to the cut-away nature of the editing and the dominance of sappy, pensive dialogue.

        The action may be well produces, but is constrained by the stereotypical studio blockbuster approach of quick editing and lots of motion blur… which I find takes me completely out of the picture and just feel numb by the end of it all.

        It is certainly my least favourite Snyder film, surpassing even Sucker Punch in that regard, as I at least liked the opening song and intro on that one.

        • Bolo

          I’m in the same boat. I don’t read comics and so I’m not fussy about how faithfully they’re adapted, I just want a good film. ‘Man of Steel’ was just a mess. They spend the whole movie talking about choice, but then Superman doesn’t really face a choice, or at least not an interesting one. His choice is to either be murdered by the same villain who murdered his father and let his adoptive planet be massacred -OR- get revenge for his father’s murder and save the world where he lives. It’s like the biggest non-dilemma ever. The film illustrates how we always have a choice, no matter how stupid, with that awful scene where Kevin Costner chooses to walk into a tornado. That was probably one of the dumbest scenes I’ve seen in a blockbuster film in awhile.

          • That scene irks me too. What bothers me even more is the way Caville screams. He should of rescued his dad to begin with, but since he didn’t, instead of screaming, something more nuanced would of worked better for that scene. This happens a lot in this movie, whenever superman shows determination , he yells, when he’s sad, he yells, etc. I blame the director more than the actor for all the, “AAAAHHHHH’s!!!” In the movie. Overall, I did enjoy MOS and is my favorite big screen portrayal of Superman

  12. Bolo

    I’m really surprised nobody has mentioned Rob Zombie’s ‘Halloween’. I know that one is massively hated. I actually like it, but I know I’m one of the few.

    • Chris B

      I think the first Zombie Halloween is pretty bad, but second one of his was actually pretty good and had a lot more interesting elements thanit’s given credit for.
      I also have a big crush on Scout Taylor-Compton so that doesn’t hurt either I suppose.

      • Bolo

        Zombie first ‘Halloween’ is a strange bird. I can see why even people who aren’t Carpenter purist people don’t like it. It’s mostly not a horror movie. It’s mostly a drama about Michael Meyers’ life and then the events of Carpenter’s original get compressed into the final 20 minutes or so. I think anybody who wanted the slasher stuff of the original probably had to wait too long to get it.

        I saw Zombie’s second one once, and remember thinking it dragged in a lot of places. It’s one of those movies that I think would be better if it had 10-15 minutes chopped out of it.

      • Clemery

        I totally have the opposite opinion… I thought Rob Zombie’s Halloween remake was an awesome update of the original (especially the workprint), while the sequel just felt like any old Platinum Dunes horror shit.

    • I enjoyed Zombie’s Halloween movies, the first one was fine but more so when Michael actually becomes the killer. I wasnt to into the lack of Zombie’s range for writing a script. Abusive language and trailer park shit for shock value, all of that didnt give me a full reason as to why Michael turned out the way he did, since all he did was hate his dad or step-dad so much, otherwise he had some issues but was a decent kid, it didnt draw me into him growing to 7’2 and hating everyone just because, there needed to be more there and Carpenter’s version didnt give you anything which was way more effective, pure evil and no reasoning behind getting picked on, sworn at and having your mother as a stripper/whore? Eh, but I loved the 2nd half as Tyler Mane was awesome and brutal, he’s huge and made it more of a dude you would be certainly afraid of if he came after you.

      The 2nd Halloween I thought was really cool, it took everything in a whole other direction, some tripped out craziness that I was in to. Might have to go back and watch that one again 🙂

      • Bolo

        I thought Danny Trejo gave his best performance in the first one, too. His death in the movie was probably the most troubling because he was somebody who was always nice to Michael.

  13. William Henley

    There is one that I have completely flipped on – LOVED it when it came out, watched it MANY times on DVD, then didn’t see it for a few years, watched it again and was like “this is pretty Meh!” The movie? Lost In Space. Having never saw it, I LOVED it in the theaters. I didn’t see the show until about 7 years later, and then saw the movie again last year. Wow, how did I ever think this was a good movie? I don’t think its BAD, but it is FAR from being good – its just Meh now.

    • Shannon Nutt

      The DVD does contain one of my favorite commentary tracks, as the director lays out the movie he WANTED to make versus the movie that actually got made.

      For purposes of this poll, however, we weren’t allowed to use a TV show that became a movie…I asked about that, because I would have went with THE FUGITIVE if that were the case. 🙂

  14. Kraig McGann

    I absolutely love SUPERMAN RETURNS. It is so much better than MAN OF STEEL. There is not one scene in MOS that I ever need to see again. Even if you didn’t care for the all that it is, at least SUPERMAN RETURNS has some incredible scenes. I do not like BATMAN BEGINS or THE DARK KNIGHT RISES at all, but think the THE DARK KNIGHT is so incredible that I consider the reboot a success. I think Zombie’s HALLOWEEN is terrific and and i can’t get enough of J.J. Abrams’ STAR TREK. ST: INTO DARKNESS was my favorite film of 2013.

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