Intensity (Original 1973 version)	Stupidity:Nudity Ratio 3:3	Budget Medium
Intensity (2006 Remake)	Stupidity:Nudity Ratio 6:0	Budget Big

May 1st seems a perfect time to finish up reviewing these movies.

It is not easy to watch remakes of your favorite movies. While I might intellectually understand the desire to update important or popular movies, viscerally it is tough to give them a fair shake. Your gut just tells you that there is no way that the new version can possibly match up to your enshrined favorites. The images, dialog and even the flaws in the original all take on a patina of greatness that borders on riduculous. Much as the "Home Team" is always the best regardless of their win/loss record, so are our favorite movies the best even when they are not very good.

That being said, the remake of the Wicker Man is lacking on many levels despite the fact that it is very obvious that the writer and director reverred the original movie. There are many references to the original and some very intentional divergances. Overall it is not a terrible movie even though at times it tries hard to be. First and foremost Nicolas Cage was cast as the lead. To my constant bafflement, Cage is a well respected actor who commands huge amounts of money. He never comes close to losing himself in the character and I never for an instant think there is anyone but Cage on the screen. Robert Duvall is one of those actors that nobody ever really remembers because he plays his characters so believably that that you remember the character and not the actor. Of course, on the other hand Nathan Fillion is one of my favorite actors and it is not like he has shown a great range.

The original features a pagean versus Christian theme. A sacrifice is needed and Lord Summerisle has mashed up a bunch of options and come up with an optimal choice; a Kingsman who comes of his own free will and is a virgin. The remake features a matriachal society that seems to have set up Cage's character to be a sacrifice years ago. Both movies feature an obnoxious cop as the main character. Sergeant Howie in the original is an arrogant Christian cop, but Cage's character just seems to be an asshole. Sergeant Howie seems to caught off guard by the causual disregard for the tenets of his religion and we think that may be why he is not paying enough attention and misses the obvious. Cage's Malus seems to have a perpetual hangover (there is a suggestion that he may be drugged) and is ill-mannered and dense. He is there for three days before he notices that all the men are appearently lobotomized and mute. Lord Summerilse has been replaced with a woman named only Summerilse. In the original there is the feeling that Lord Summerilse is a true believer while in the remake we feel that Burstyn's character is taking advantage of the situation. Burstyn is frequently seen in the presence of servants while Lee's character is shown as the leader but not as a deity. In the original Willow (Britt Eckland) is the Inn Keeper's daughter who tempts Sergeant Howie with sex. In the remake Willow (Kate Beahan) is Malus' ex-girlfriend and the mother of the missing child. This change was probably made to reinforce the "one of us" part of the sacrifice. Still it would be entirely unfair to compare Britt and Kate. Britt's character was meant to be a sexually charged young woman while Beahan's character is probably supposed to be an emotional wreck and looks weak and unhealthy.

I will, however, compare Britt Eckland and Molly Parker. Their characters have a similarity in that they both fully endorse and support the plot to find an occupant for the Wicker Man. Eckland's character torments the Sergeant with with sex and we see him nearly succumb to her advances. Parker plays the school teacher who in the original discussed phallic symbols in a cheerful "sex is good' way. In the remake, the school teacher is militantly anti-male laying any number of evils at the feet of men. Whie the rest of the women on the island are dressed in Peasant Chic with long straight hair, Parker sports a huge mass of curly black hair and a tight fitting dress that borders on fetish. Why? Haven't the faintest. No one else on the island wears anything close to this outfit. If I were directing the movie, I would probably put Parker in an outfit like that because she looks fantastic in it, even if it is serouisly out of place. Perhaps the director and I have similar motivations because I can't think of any other reason for the outfit other than that Parker rocks it. The school teacher torments Malus not with sex but with vauge hints that Rowan may still be alive but being preparred for sacrifice. Eckland was never much of an actor and while she is very good in this role, it does not demand much of her. Parker has been in several films (Kissed) and is showing herself to be a versatile actor playing a wide range of characters. Parker wins hands down and is one of the highlights of the movie.

The major theme of the movie has been changed from pagean versus Christian to Man versus Woman, sort of. Instead of apples the island's main product is honey because bees have a queen and lots of male drones. Which is supposed to mimic the society on the island. Unfortunately like many things in the remake it does not make sense if you look too closely at it. While the pageans are portrayed as being happy and friendly (expect for that burning alive bit at the end), the women in the remake are shrewish, mean and murderous. When Cage wonders why they would have store-bought honey on the table, he is informed that he is not worthy of "Royal Honey". The sea plane pilot fares worse than that and is killed for bringing Cage to the island. What? Wait! Didn't they want him to bring Cage to the island? One of the other problems caused by the theme shift is evident in the May Pole scene. In the original we watch as the boys dance around the May Pole weaving the ribbons in an intricate pattern. We then move into the school room where the Sergeant eventually finds Rowan's desk. When he opens the desk he finds a beetle tied to a pin by a string. The girl at the next desk comments on how the bug keeps going round and round until it is trapped. I'll be honest, I missed this the first couple of viewings and then suddenly it hit me. The villiagers are weaving their plot and the Sergeant is being lead around by his nose. Such a clever and subtle visual clue. Of course, the remake does not have the May Pole so the visual reference would not be as strong, but did they go with the bug on a string. Sigh, no, of course not. They put a crow in the desk that flew out when Cage opened the desk. Okay, maybe I can see the crow as a harbinger of death, but it really just a variation on the Spring Loaded Cat.

A lot has been made of Cage's acting in this movie. Yes it is just as bad as you've heard. "Argh. No! Not the bees". I can only hope that Cage improvised that line because I would lose all respect for the writer and director if they thought that anyone could deliver that line in a realistic way. Still, I expected to really hate this movie but it is not truly awful. It is a polished turd and the gilding does not hide the stink, but the movie's big problem is that it is a remake of a much better film. By itself it is just another average big budget movie. The meandering plot and bad acting would be annoying but typical. However, because it is a remake of a rather influential movie it is held to a different standard. It pales in comparison to the original. Perhaps if they had copied the original more faithfully instead of changing the motivation of the major characters, distorting the plot and grossly alterating the local's religon they might have fared better. Especially as they have copied many of the original scenes very closely, the schoolroom scene being a noteable example. The original movie is not without its flaws, but it is a film from the heart of the writer and the actors are given great lines and scenes. Marketing and censorship were not on the minds of the filmmakers. The remake was slated to be PG-13 which means you can say "Fuck" once. I am sure there were several meetings to decide when and where Cage would use it. It is hard to image how anyone why anyone would redo a movie like Wicker Man as a PG-13. The themes in the original are adult themes. That is not to say that there is nothing for adolescents in the movie, but the deeper ideas of blind faith, science versus supersitition, and virtue to the point of vanity are more likely to appeal to older audiences.

I'd recommend seeing the original before the remake or skipping the remake altogether. It is not a terrible movie by itself, but as I mentioned previously because it a remake that reminds us constantly of the original, we are frequently reminded of how much better the original movie was.

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