DeniReview: A Nightmare On Elm Street!
May 3rd 2010 06:02
Category: Horror
Rating: *(1) out of 5 stars.
The only thing that could have helped save this movie was a cameo appearance by Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow, beating Freddie Krueger over the head with a barrel of rum in a drunken stupor. Yes, that's a very absurd solution but remaking this movie and changing the very essence that made the original Freddie Krueger a cult classic was equally if not more ludicrous.
The story is pretty much the same as the original 1984 version. A group of high school kids all share the same nightmare of being tormented in their sleep by the grossly disfigured man with the trademark clawed glove on one hand. The parents share a dirty secret from the past. The kids are being picked-off one by one and murdered in their sleep until someone is bright enough to discover the missing link which connect them all to a shared past.
Aside from being visually superior to the original, this movie moves like a check list. A sufficient quota of characters are introduced and quickly dispensed with - we don't even get to know them enough to even care. Then the script decides to take us to the back-story and from this point we are supposed to be at least remotely interested. The entire movie can be likened to the Tin-man with no heart - just going through the motions. It wasn't even scary - I would have been more frightened watching a Lifetime television movie starring Valerie Bertinelli.
The comical Krueger of the past is what made the old franchise entertaining but that character is gone. The new man of the hour, played by Jackie Earl Haley, is reduced from the wise-cracking, slashing enthusiast with a sense of humor and the gift of gab to nothing more than a burn-victim with a bad attitude. There's not even one reason why I should mention the rest of the cast - no one stood out and the only time they hit their mark in their performances is when they lay dying in their own pool of blood.
The idea is that this is supposed to be the first of a trilogy, I only hope that the person responsible for this learns from this huge mistake and take us back to the Freddie of old. You just can't tamper with perfection. There's a reason why people like the first movie - why change that?
Do yourself and favor and wait until this one comes on TV as a movie of the week. Don't even waste your money on a DVD rental.
The only thing that could have helped save this movie was a cameo appearance by Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow, beating Freddie Krueger over the head with a barrel of rum in a drunken stupor. Yes, that's a very absurd solution but remaking this movie and changing the very essence that made the original Freddie Krueger a cult classic was equally if not more ludicrous.
The story is pretty much the same as the original 1984 version. A group of high school kids all share the same nightmare of being tormented in their sleep by the grossly disfigured man with the trademark clawed glove on one hand. The parents share a dirty secret from the past. The kids are being picked-off one by one and murdered in their sleep until someone is bright enough to discover the missing link which connect them all to a shared past.
Aside from being visually superior to the original, this movie moves like a check list. A sufficient quota of characters are introduced and quickly dispensed with - we don't even get to know them enough to even care. Then the script decides to take us to the back-story and from this point we are supposed to be at least remotely interested. The entire movie can be likened to the Tin-man with no heart - just going through the motions. It wasn't even scary - I would have been more frightened watching a Lifetime television movie starring Valerie Bertinelli.
The comical Krueger of the past is what made the old franchise entertaining but that character is gone. The new man of the hour, played by Jackie Earl Haley, is reduced from the wise-cracking, slashing enthusiast with a sense of humor and the gift of gab to nothing more than a burn-victim with a bad attitude. There's not even one reason why I should mention the rest of the cast - no one stood out and the only time they hit their mark in their performances is when they lay dying in their own pool of blood.
The idea is that this is supposed to be the first of a trilogy, I only hope that the person responsible for this learns from this huge mistake and take us back to the Freddie of old. You just can't tamper with perfection. There's a reason why people like the first movie - why change that?
Do yourself and favor and wait until this one comes on TV as a movie of the week. Don't even waste your money on a DVD rental.
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