Hollywood's always loved remakes, but now it's all about reboots (or, less crassly, "re-imaginings"). But what defines a movie reboot can get more convoluted and confusing than Captain Kirk's rules for fizbin. For example, 2009's Friday the 13th was a reboot, but 2010's A Nightmare on Elm Street and Rob Zombie's Halloween were remakes since they essentially retold the same story as their respective original films. Reboots can be tonally different than their predecessors, recast almost all of the key roles (Casino Royale held onto Judi Dench's M, but put her character into an entirely new continuity), and yet still perhaps have a few ties or direct nods to their predecessors.
Some films flirt with reboot status without ever truly being one, such as The Bourne Legacy, which has been dubbed a "sidequel" for including nods to Matt Damon's Jason Bourne even as it tells a parallel story aimed to take the franchise in a whole new direction. That's another thing: almost all reboots are for franchises or branded properties that aspired to be franchises but never quite took off.
So how has Hollywood fared so far at the reboot game? We rank their 10 best efforts.
Ben Affleck took over the role of intrepid CIA analyst Jack Ryan after Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford's successful runs. SoaF was one of Hollywood's first and most noteworthy reboots, revisiting the character's origin and establishing a new continuity a few years before Batman Begins really ignited the reboot craze. This film opened less than a year after 9/11 and its nuclear terrorism plot rankled a nation whose nerves were still frayed. SoaF largely gets a bad rap, but it's a better flick than its detractors claim. Nevertheless, it didn't lead to sequels (which is kind of the point of rebooting a franchise, as far as studios are concerned). Paramount is once again rebooting the franchise with next year's Jack Ryan, starring Chris Pine.
While much more like the Marvel comics and the 1970s TV series than its meditative Ang Lee-directed predecessor, The Incredible Hulk was a draw, commercially and critically, with the 2003 film. This reboot, which directly leads into Marvel's The Avengers, is a fun, action romp chock full of monster mash destruction and solid performances (including Edward Norton as Bruce Banner).
The Incredible Hulk successfully established the idea of "Hulk as hero," which is not an easy task considering the Green Goliath's penchant for mass destruction. But by giving Bruce the choice between accepting a cure or living with his curse to save innocent bystanders, the film accomplished what Marvel set out to do back in 1962.
This Bryan Singer-directed film didn’t soar at the box office, and Warner Bros’ subsequent dismissal of a sequel has tarnished its reputation to the point where people will freely call it the worst thing since, well, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. We were, perhaps, too cynical for Superman Returns, a sweetly earnest movie that reflects the sweetly earnest character of Supes himself. A spiritual descendent of the Christopher Reeve film series, Superman Returns tips its hat to its predecessors in a number of ways, not least of which was the inclusion of John Williams’ majestic score and a touching posthumous appearance from Marlon Brando as Jor-El.
Brandon Routh - who shares an uncanny resemblance to Reeve – injects the film with an ideal blend of charm, bumbling awkwardness and gentle melancholy. It’s the melancholy that stays with us, though, as Superman Returns is a love story first and foremost, driven by emotional conflict rather than the fizzy physical. Perhaps it was this meditative pace that turned those looking for more visceral thrills away, or perhaps Superman was just too wholesome for a modern audience already fattening up on a diet of grizzled antiheroes. Perhaps the marquee value of Christopher Nolan's involvement with next year's Superman reboot, Man of Steel, will help guarantee a better mainstream reception.
Here's a film that's divided many of us here at IGN, some of whom found it charming while others deemed it a tired rehash of a story already recently told. In many ways, the Spidey reboot is a cautionary tale for other reboots in the dangers of revisiting the origin story and covering the same plot points as their earlier incarnation(s).
That said, The Amazing Spider-Man undeniably has its heart in the right place and the performances of Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone gave us a Spidey romance we could fully invest in. We like these characters, but hopefully the sequel will offer them a fresher and more deftly executed story to be in than this reboot did.
It's only just hitting theaters, but we're already comfortable labeling Dredd 3D as an example of how to do a reboot right. The 1995 adaptation of Judge Dredd didn’t get it right. Not even close. Karl Urban, who keeps his face masked for the entire film, nails the role. In many ways, Dredd feels like an action film from a simpler time, like Assault on Precinct 13 or Escape From New York.
The film doesn’t break the bank with escalating set-pieces to the point where the character is lost amidst the explosions. Indeed, Dredd is primarily a character study, albeit one fueled by violence and action. We can’t think of a better way to re-introduce this character to cinema audiences.
Tim Burton's abominable Planet of the Apes was itself a reboot, but it took this 2011 effort to restore luster to the venerable sci-fi franchise. Take some very recognizable and familiar elements from the tried and true series (communicative simians, sympathetic scientists, ape uprisings) and give them a 21st century kick (performance-capture, genetic engineering, James Franco). Andy Serkis' Caesar receives honest to Ape-God character development as he grows from a baby chimp and pseudo-human to a confused and tortured soul, torn away from the only family he's ever known, and then finally to an ape freedom fighter and rebel leader.
The viewer truly feels the plight of the apes, both those in the "sanctuary" and the ones being experimented on, which is amazing considering that none of these characters actually exist. It's also chock full of inside gags for Apes fans, from character names to lines of dialogue to an actual passing reference to Charlton Heston's space voyage which started it all in 1968.
As X-Men: First Class' rushed production and rumored problems became public knowledge, no one would have believed that the film would wind up so great. But this is what you get when you put ace actors - James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence - under the care of a filmmaker like Matthew Vaughn, who had an X-Men movie churning around inside him ever since he left X-Men: The Last Stand weeks before shooting.
And so what if the continuity doesn't add up with the other movies or the comics? At times the film feels like a happy accident anyway, as if all the disparate elements and behind-the-scenes troubles somehow improbably conspired to make the best X-Men film yet.
J.J. Abrams' 2009 reboot did more than any post-TOS TV series or feature film to make Star Trek cool and accessible to non-fans while also not disrespecting the source material. By creating an alternate timeline, Abrams and Co. were able to allow for new adventures for the Enterprise crew -- seen here on their first mission together and played by an all-new, fresh-faced cast -- while not disavowing the past (hence, Leonard Nimoy's supporting role).
It may not have been as cerebral or lofty as past incarnations, but this reboot was a lot of fun and made Trek relevant and popular again. It took a whole new audience to the final frontier, thereby granting a new lease on life for Gene Roddenberry's decades-old creation.
After decades of bloat and self-parody, the James Bond franchise was revitalized with this Martin Campbell-directed adaptation of Ian Fleming's first Bond novel. Casino Royale made 007 cool, relevant and real again. This is a lean, mean thriller (with a great romantic subplot) about a killer being cultivated into a gentleman spy and the emotional and spiritual toll that transformation takes on him.
In his first outing as 007, Daniel Craig is a revelation, making the role his own without losing any of the traits that have made James Bond such an icon. He is not just standing around in a tux, smirking and tossing off one-liners while judo-chopping some dime-a-dozen henchmen. Craig's 007 is a finely tuned machine who is absolutely believable as someone who could clear a room, and as a cold, hardened man who has buried his heart as far away from harm as possible. Ian Fleming would be proud.
The first Batman movie to keep the focus largely on Bruce Wayne's transformation into a force that can keep the superstitious and cowardly criminals of Gotham City at bay benefits from director Christopher Nolan's unique take on the material. Grounding this Batman in a very real and gritty world raises the stakes that were previously hinged on quip-happy villains and busy plots. Nolan's fearlessness when it comes to fracturing time and cross-cutting between various endgames reinforces his movie's theme of fear, and gives us a comic book movie that warrants being called a "film."
Treating Batman like a real person also made him a greater threat; for the first time, he was scary on screen - see the whole "Swear to me!!!" scene above as proof. No Burton goth, no Schumacher nipples. Batman Begins eradicated the stench left behind by the last two Bat-films. No other reboot on this list had more work to do to redeem their franchise than Batman Begins, which has become the template for all subsequent movie reboots.
Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com
