Oh man, don't even try it! 'THE HITCHER' remake. (1 Viewer)

[Inspector Hammer!]

Okay, i'm usually more open minded about remakes because some of the time, for me anyway, I feel that perhaps something different could be done with the same story, but this is where I draw my personal line in the desert sand.

IMO the original The Hitcher is pure unadulterated perfection! The tension, drama, terror, action, writing, directing and acting are all perfect and this cannot be improved upon in any way that I can comprehend except to make it bloodier and the editing headache-inducing.

I also am willing to give up any 2 of my fingers if they can possibly find someone as threatening and unhinged as Rutger Hauer was, go ahead, I dare them to try lol.

I'll wait for dvd for this one.

 

[ThomasC]

"Don't even try it?"

 

[Greg_S_H]

Ya. I'll join John's moral outrage--though I have no particular connection to the Hitcher--but mine will extend to not seeing it EVAR. Mine will be in protest of the ceaseless parade of unnecessary remakes. It's getting ridiculous. Getting?

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Well, I said that THEY (the filmmakers) shouldn't try it, I never said I wouldn't.

Sean Bien is a great actor, but Hauer was evil in a way that cannot be copied, built on or bested in any way shape or form IMO.

Sean Bein is fighting a losing battle with this role, i'm sure he'll be good at being bad there's no doubt about that, but to capture that kind of menace, that kind of merciless lunacy that Hauer put on film in the original is a once in a lifetime thing.

 

[DavidPla]

Well, you can always look at the upside on this. It probably means a new special edition DVD for the original. And "The Hitcher' is by no means a classic that is known to a lot of people so the remake might get a lot of new fans to go and check out the original. Sometimes I feel these remakes bring out the awareness in the original so there's really no harm done.

 

[Malcolm R]

Never seen the original, but the trailers for the remake look pretty good.

 

[TravisR]

I can understand why people are bummed but I've learned to not care about (bad) remakes. I love Psycho but does the remake take away from my enjoyment of the original? Nope. If this remake is good, that's great. If it's bad, it's not going to change my opinion on the original.

And like Joseph said, the remake may lead to a good DVD of the original.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

I suppose the film would be positive in the mentioned respect of a new dvd release of the original, but i'm speaking on a strictly entertainment level and I can't see how this remake will top or even equal the original. If you haven't seen the original I HIGHLY recommend you check it out, it's one of the greatest thrillers to come out of the 80's and a cautionary tale about NEVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES picking up a hitchhiker lol.

Sean Bean will be good, but you don't seem to get what i'm saying about Rutger Hauer's performance, he OWNS that role and the film is all his, with all the bad guys in films today all acting overtly evil on a similar level, almost being indistinguishable from one another, it's going to be difficult to impossible for Bean to be truly memorable, he'll be awesome i'm sure, but will he be remembered for this role 20 years from now? I doubt it.

I've seen Bean as a villain and he just doesn't posses that menacing glint in his eye that Hauer had, that smirk, the same mystery or that sense of uneasiness.

 

[Robin_B]

I agree with John. I think this was Rutger's best performance after Blade Runner. I'm not as opposed to remakes as most seem to be. The Hitcher is one of my favorite 80's movies but I'm still willing to give the new one a chance. I seriously doubt it will be AS good as the original but could still be a fairly good movie. From the trailer it looks like they're gonna change things around a little, it looks like the guy is the one tied to the truck near the end of the movie.

 

[Greg_S_H]

They better just not even freaking THINK about remaking Blind Fury!

The irony being that Blind Fury is, itself, a remake.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

I prefer his brothers Tres and Muy!

 

[Kevin M]

[Fred Flintstone] Droll......very droll.. [/Fred Flintstone]



For what it's worth I love the original and I don't see the point in a remake...well...aside from the obvious potential cash rewards if it is a hit....it is a business after all....yep. A business.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Okie dokie, call me lame for resurrecting my own thread but I just watched this and it's everything that I said it would be and more...it sucked even worse than I expected.

I lost count of how many ways this movie got it ALL wrong and played AGAINST any hope of creating the quiet tension and uneasy desolation of the original, this was pure unadulterated crap in the typical fasion of todays worst remakes, loud, bombastic, polished and dead inside.

From the first few frames I knew what I was in for, it started off with a typically modern song and then the film violated it's first law of one-man-against-the-primal-forces-of-evil filmmaking...there were two of them, a guy and a girl who start off in the busy city...mistake #2, the filmmakers immediately ruin any hope of creating a movie where the put upon heroes look and feel utterly alone. That's one of the things that make the original great, the fact that Jim was always shown in the desert and never in any heavily populated cities, as if that's the only world that existed for him as far as the story was concerned and it helped build the tension and gave it a decidedly nightmarish feel.

The attempt to create any connection between the girl and Ryder was laughable, it was nonexistant, he was just...there, he was the bad guy and she was the good guy, er, girl who had to kill him where as in the original there was a strange and uncomfortable connection between Jim and Ryder, like the two of them had been on the same journey just on opposite sides, almost as if they were related somehow but that's all gone here.

More blood...meh, don't need it, it's just there to substitute suspense and don't even get me started on the music, they place stupid songs in spots where there should be silence and thus the entire mood, or attempt thereof, is lost and/or squashed all leading up to a conclusion that had me yawning instead of on the edge of my seat.

And finally it brings me to Sean Bean, no way, man, not even close. As I said Rutger Hauer's performance is one of those that is virtually untouchable, it cannot be equalled and it certaintly cannot be surpassed, it's the same as if they remade Die Hard with someone else playing John McClane or if they remade Lethal Weapon with someone else playing Martin Riggs, it just can't work and it didn't here, clearly.

This insipid remake shouldn't even be uttered in the same breath as the original. I'm just glad I rented it, but on the other hand I could have done something really worthwhile with that couple of bucks, I could have went and grabbed myself a slice of pizza and a soda instead.

 

[AlexCremers]

The extra quality that Hauer brings to the screen (mainly in Blade Runner and The Hitcher) is that, even though he's the evil, he also somehow makes you care about him. In the two films mentioned here, but also in Nighthawks, he even succeeded to be more sympathectic as the antagonist, than the protagonists themselves. I don't have to see the remake, I know just like John, it is useless to try.


Alex