| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Movie Name | The Manchurian Candidate (2004) |
| Director | Jonathan Demme |
| Writer | Richard Condon (novel), Daniel Pyne & Dean Georgaris (screenplay) |
| Lead Actor | Denzel Washington |
| Cast | Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, Liev Schreiber, Kimberly Elise, Jon Voight, Jeffrey Wright, Vera Farmiga, Ted Levine, Bruno Ganz, Simon McBurney |
| Genre | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller |
| Release Date | July 30, 2004 (USA) |
| Duration | 2h 9m (129 minutes) |
| Budget | $80 million USD |
| Box Office | $96.1 million USD (worldwide) |
| Language | English |
| IMDb Rating | 6.6/10 |
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I don’t believe remakes should necessarily ever be made, however, I also know that does not mean all remakes are bad. The 2004 version of The Manchurian Candidate is an enjoyable 21st-century take on the John Frankenheimer original.
The world is no longer in danger of being taken over by those nutty red Commies, so I wondered how the movie was going to be updated for modern times. Well the Korean War takes a back seat for Desert Storm, and those Chinese Communists are now replaced with Halliburton Manchurian Global, a multi-million dollar international corporation.
And the hypnosis that fuelled the mind control of soldiers in 1962 has been upgraded to full blown microchip implants. “Invasive. IN-VASIVE,” describes Denzel Washington (playing Frank Sinatra).
So while the world doesn’t need remakes, this one at least had enough differences from the original to make it relevant to our time (and current political climate) and still maintain the original’s central themes. Party names aren’t mentioned in the film (nor were they mentioned in the original, if memory serves), but it’s clear that the baddies are the Republicans making backdoor deals with industry and corporations to control the White House, and the world, for money. Besides, the casting of Al Franken as a legitimate newscaster in the movie surely lets us know whose side Jonathan Demme is on.
I really enjoyed this, and found it to be just as good as the original, which is surprising because I don’t normally enjoy watching Denzel Washington. But he was great (and not as much of an eccentric conspiracy theorist that the trailer makes him out to be). It’s definitely a lot creepier (and paranoid) than the original, due in part to all the implants and mad scientists, but also because of how closely it illustrates the American political system.
Oh, and a note to production designers of Hollywood does every crazy person in movies now have to have dozens upon dozens of frenzied notebooks artfully collaged with newspaper clippings, red ink, manic drawings, and obsessively tiny handwriting filling its pages? We all saw Se7en, okay?
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