Monday 18 July 2011

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)


This is the 2010 Platinum Dunes remake of the Wes Craven classic from 1984 starring Robert Englund and Helen Langenkamp. Now the remake was highly talked about and there was a lot of discussion around whether they would get Robert Englund back to play the role that made him famous. And they went with an interesting decision, they chose Jackie Earle Haley who came to prominence to me as Rorschach in the 2009 Watchmen. Now I am not a fan of remakes and the original version of this film that launched Freddy Kreuger into our world is one of my all time favorite films. So I was not very hopeful but excited to see how they would re imagine this classic and restart the franchise.

Well what a disaster this turned out to be, you have a Freddy Krueger that is not Robert Englund and while Jackie Earle Haley was adequate in the role he was not the wise cracking child killer we knew in the 80's. They missed the point of the film to me, now they attempt to tell a slightly different story which is good, put your own mark on it. But they missed the point, the characters were totally unbelievable and you did not care and while they made the story their own they kept putting in scenes from the original, the wall scene and the claw in the bath. The biggest let down for me though was the special effects, the scene where Freddy comes out of the wall over Nancy is pitiful CGI, they would have been better with a rubber sheet and somebody putting their head into it. And the final scene of the film was laughable based purely on the quality of the CGI, this in today's age where they can convince you that there is an alien who does not exist is talking to live action actors it is disappointing.

Overall I was disappointed even though I had low expectations, it has to be 1 star not worth seeing. There will be people that will watch it as a completest but please avoid it other than for this reason.

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