The Good, The Bad, The Ugly: Film Remakes, Part One

Beauty and the Beast, 1991

There is a saying about relationships: each and every one you have will fail, until you find the one that doesn’t. This is spot on in that you can use it to describe everything in life, including films and the inevitability that they will be remade. Usually, they will be remade twice. In this series, I’ll examine specific genres and try to figure out why some genres are more prone to catastrophe than others.

Perhaps the most beloved (and in turn the most painful) genre of remakes is the children’s film. At its very core, the perfect children’s movie has to entertain you and provide a sense of wonder and irreplaceable magic. But, it must have a moral, a lesson that the viewer—both child and adult—can take from it and apply to everyday life. It’s an obvious but difficult formula that few have successfully achieved. Ultimately, the strange concept of a director taking a flawless childhood treasure and thinking that he can make it even better doesn’t sit right. It can be different and it can be his vision, but it won’t be better, at least not 99% of the time. There are those films that have become classics, both originals and remakes. There are some that mean well, and deserve points for effort, but ultimately disappoint. And there are complete and utter disasters.

Let’s start with the seemingly-impossible-made-possible. Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast is almost nightmarish in its vision of a world unlike any other. It’s a borderline horror movie. Yet, it feels alive. It is a living, breathing creation of wonder. However most aren’t familiar with its bizarre beauty, and the obscurity of it led to the possibility of it being remade. It was wise of Disney’s 1991 version to stay away from Cocteau’s surreal interpretation, and stick to the basics of a great and simple story combined with the power of pure and undiluted beauty. Vividly brought to life by the royalty of Broadway musical theatre (Jerry Orbach and Angela Landsbury), the songs are instant classics and each frame is painted with obvious love and care. Both versions of the film can stand side-by-side and garner nothing but praise.

The Bad News Bears, 1976

Not everything works out so well, however. The appeal of the first Bad News Bears movie was that, despite its rough, two-swears-per-second exterior and shaggy-looking cast, it had a tightly paced jazz rhythm. It may have seemed to have been created on the fly, but if you actually examine it in microscopic detail, you can see the precision and attention to detail that went into the creation of it. Walter Matthau, the perfectly cast lead in the film, can also be described that way. Much effort was made on his part to appear as though he had just wandered onscreen from a local Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Even though the highly esteemed Richard Linklater remade the film in 2005 and cast Billy Bob Thornton in the lead, the ultimate result fell very short of the original. It was rough and shaggy sure, but it didn’t have nearly as much heart and soul as its predecessor. It wasn’t better and it wasn’t different. It was simply disappointing.

In terms of children’s film remakes that are complete and utter disasters, there seems to be one constant: actress Amanda Bynes, who apparently only has remakes on her resume. There is no denying that she has magnetism onscreen, but for whatever reason, she can’t pick a project reflecting that. A case in point is Sydney White, a remake of the beloved Disney classic, Snow White. The original is a frightening, gothic-period fairy tale whereas the re-imagined film is just ugly. . . period. Any attempt at replicating the cleverness or gracefulness of the source material is abandoned for cheap and easy humor. A film can be silly, but it should also have a soul. Luckily, Sydney White disappeared from theatres quickly and escaped what would have been the deserved title of “worst children’s film remake of all time.”

Sydney White, 2007

It’s a difficult formula to crack, often unattainable, but it can happen. You can find worthy remakes of films. It just takes a lot of effort, patience, and hope. Also, finding the correct metaphor is crucial. I feel I’ve proven that. In the next installment, I’ll examine how horror and drama remakes require the precision of a brain surgeon and not the anvil of a Warner-Brothers cartoon character. See, the metaphors are getting better already.

Read Part Two of this series here.

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