11:39 AM
I had opportunity to catch the recent remake of The Stepford Wives last night on Tivo.
What a joyless, pathetic, emasculating movie this was.
The new movie does nothing better than the 1975 original and many things far, far worse. Ira Levin's creepy novel was scary because it made the readers ask themselves. how far would you go if you could? and How do you define a "perfect marriage?"
The earlier movie (1975, starring Katherine Ross) was effective and actually scary because they made it clear that behind all the posturing about women's lib and men feeling threatened or marginalized by their mates, etc., the men of Stepford were really, truly killing their wives and replacing them with androids. Plain and simple.
In this remake, no such thing occurs. Instead, we have a lame attempt at a comedy-- the men's club is far less scary (just a gang of nerdy dweebs, actually, led by the redoubtable Christopher Walken). The women aren't killed, just ... altered.. by a chip implant in their brains. The whole story is brought into the realm of political correctness by having one of the "wives" be a gay male. The wives aren't replaced by robots, even though there IS a robot of the main female lead at one point. This is never explained. Why are they referred to as robots, when they are just brainwashed?
The sappy, happy ending totally ruined it for me. It's the worst remake of a classic movie (that didn't need to be remade) that I've seen yet.
I like the occasionally morally ambiguous story. In real life, the good guys don't always win and we don't always have a politically correct, pat answer for life's problems. The original movie ended in just such a fashion,which is one of the reasons I still like to watch it. The remake will be in the budget DVD section within the year.
To top things off, Kidman doesn't get naked, either.
I was so happy to see CHOPPING MALL on shortly thereafter.
What a joyless, pathetic, emasculating movie this was.
The new movie does nothing better than the 1975 original and many things far, far worse. Ira Levin's creepy novel was scary because it made the readers ask themselves. how far would you go if you could? and How do you define a "perfect marriage?"
The earlier movie (1975, starring Katherine Ross) was effective and actually scary because they made it clear that behind all the posturing about women's lib and men feeling threatened or marginalized by their mates, etc., the men of Stepford were really, truly killing their wives and replacing them with androids. Plain and simple.
In this remake, no such thing occurs. Instead, we have a lame attempt at a comedy-- the men's club is far less scary (just a gang of nerdy dweebs, actually, led by the redoubtable Christopher Walken). The women aren't killed, just ... altered.. by a chip implant in their brains. The whole story is brought into the realm of political correctness by having one of the "wives" be a gay male. The wives aren't replaced by robots, even though there IS a robot of the main female lead at one point. This is never explained. Why are they referred to as robots, when they are just brainwashed?
The sappy, happy ending totally ruined it for me. It's the worst remake of a classic movie (that didn't need to be remade) that I've seen yet.
I like the occasionally morally ambiguous story. In real life, the good guys don't always win and we don't always have a politically correct, pat answer for life's problems. The original movie ended in just such a fashion,which is one of the reasons I still like to watch it. The remake will be in the budget DVD section within the year.
To top things off, Kidman doesn't get naked, either.
I was so happy to see CHOPPING MALL on shortly thereafter.
