Seriously, have a treatment where Indiana Jones takes over as Love Boat captain with a heavy side of slasher stupid, all as a remake of Titanic? Send it in because Hollywood will remake any fucking thing these days.

Totally Forgot

Really, I had to call up a list of summer movies to see what I hadn’t reviewed yet. Total Recall was such a bad remake and terrible waste of ‘stars’ this will be quick.

Colin Farrell (who maybe should stick to cameos like Horrible Bosses), Jessica Beil and Kate Beckinsale slum for paycheck. Hard.

Considering their IMDB resumes, that says something.

Other than the payday, why agree to a by-the-numbers remake for the sole purpose of making a crappier movie?

Sub “other side of world” for Mars and there you go. The twists were non-existant; story and plot, recycled and obvious; even the future tech-fu looked lame and dated. Absotively nothing to see here.

Final Snark: Makes the Schwartzennager version look like fucking Shakespeare.

Dredd not dreadful. Damn.

Desperate for something, Dredd was watchable and an improvement on the Stallone original.

My biggest disappointed was that a hot, buffed up Karl “Bones” Urban was so in dour character – and in costume. (A flashback to some shirtless backstory time would have killed?!)

Not that I know from either but this felt less ‘comic book’ and more ‘video game’ with Dredd moving from scene to scene (room), weapon to weapon as he took out the bad guys in a Thunderdome of a futuristic shitty tenament.

Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) is villain with scars, tats, attitude and an NRA-issued Platinum Card. Blond chick (Olivia Thirlby) is a psychic who – despite that she can see stuff and read minds and shit – picked totally the wrong day for her rookie trial by fire.

And that’s really it. Movie’s really a lot more about them than Dredd, not many twists or surprises, except that I was surprisingly not bored with this.

Final Snark: Dredd doesn’t over-think or overreach – smart move.

Final Final Snark: Dear Hollywood, remake better movies or IDK, make older movies actually better.

Related articles

• ‘Total Recall’ Is Not What Hollywood Needs Now (ireport.cnn.com)
• Review: Dredd (comicbooked.com)