Awful 'Nightmare,' Annoying 'Vengeance,' Thin 'Paper,' Sincere 'Mission'
FS
Issue date: 5/4/10 Section: Arts & Entertainment
"A Nightmare on Elm Street"
The remake of Wes Craven's 1984 slasher flick "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (wide release) is proof positive they should have left the original alone.
Craven's movie, which introduced claw-gloved, disfigured Freddy Krueger and his first bunch of young victims, had not just a memorable villain but a clever premise in which his quarries had to keep from falling asleep to avoid being murdered in their dreams. It spawned no fewer than seven sequels, each worse than the last.
Stephen Bayer's new version has a bigger budget but little else of note. Jackie Earle Haley, who takes on the duty of wearing Freddy's famous sweater as well his handy knives, is no match for Robert Englund, and though the script tries to give new twists to the original's signature scenes, it comes across mostly as a tired retread. And the added material - like an extended flashback to Krueger's past - is as unnecessary as "Revenge of the Sith" was.
Craven's was a true "Nightmare." This one isn't even mildly unsettling.
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"Furry Vengeance"
If you've ever wondered what a Bugs Bunny cartoon might be like if it were transformed into a live-action feature, "Furry Vengeance" (wide release) provides the answer, and it's not pretty.
Brendan Fraser goes the full slapstick route as the Elmer Fudd character, a guy who transplants his family to an Oregon forest to oversee a residential development and finds himself harassed by the animals who object to the loss of their homes. These are wascaly cwitters, as Fudd might say, who contrive devices worthy of Rube Goldberg to frustrate the builders. Fraser suffers humiliation after humiliation at their paws.
There's the makings of a hilarious three-minute short here, but at an hour and a half it's cruelly overextended and irritating, especially since it goes in for lots of the potty humor and crotch punches that fill kids' movies nowadays.
The remake of Wes Craven's 1984 slasher flick "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (wide release) is proof positive they should have left the original alone.
Craven's movie, which introduced claw-gloved, disfigured Freddy Krueger and his first bunch of young victims, had not just a memorable villain but a clever premise in which his quarries had to keep from falling asleep to avoid being murdered in their dreams. It spawned no fewer than seven sequels, each worse than the last.
Stephen Bayer's new version has a bigger budget but little else of note. Jackie Earle Haley, who takes on the duty of wearing Freddy's famous sweater as well his handy knives, is no match for Robert Englund, and though the script tries to give new twists to the original's signature scenes, it comes across mostly as a tired retread. And the added material - like an extended flashback to Krueger's past - is as unnecessary as "Revenge of the Sith" was.
Craven's was a true "Nightmare." This one isn't even mildly unsettling.
____________________________________________
"Furry Vengeance"
If you've ever wondered what a Bugs Bunny cartoon might be like if it were transformed into a live-action feature, "Furry Vengeance" (wide release) provides the answer, and it's not pretty.
Brendan Fraser goes the full slapstick route as the Elmer Fudd character, a guy who transplants his family to an Oregon forest to oversee a residential development and finds himself harassed by the animals who object to the loss of their homes. These are wascaly cwitters, as Fudd might say, who contrive devices worthy of Rube Goldberg to frustrate the builders. Fraser suffers humiliation after humiliation at their paws.
There's the makings of a hilarious three-minute short here, but at an hour and a half it's cruelly overextended and irritating, especially since it goes in for lots of the potty humor and crotch punches that fill kids' movies nowadays.
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