10 Movie Remakes With Better Endings Than The Original
1. The Mechanic (2011)
The Jason Statham-starring 2011 remake of Charles Bronson's 1972 actioner The Mechanic benefits enormously from the fact that the original film is far from a classic, and so few accusations of "sacrilege" were thrown around upon its release.
Though hardly a great movie in its own right, the remake does offer up one of The Stath's better-crafted genre vehicles, aided by pitting him against a typically stellar Ben Foster.
The '72 film climaxes with assassin Arthur Bishop (Bronson) being fatally poisoned by his own apprentice, Steve McKenna (Jan-Michael Vincent). However, when Steve later picks up his car from Bishop's home, he's killed by a car bomb set by Bishop, who had a contingency in place in the event of his own death.
The remake delivers a similar ending but gives it a cheeky little tweak, with Steve (Foster) seemingly murdering Bishop (Statham) by blowing up his car at a gas station, only to find himself similarly blown up by a car bomb in the next scene.
But the added twist is the last-minute reveal via gas station surveillance camera footage, that Bishop actually managed to escape his truck seconds before Steve blew it up.
Shameless sequel bait? Perhaps, but it was a reveal just silly enough to end the film on a crowd-pleasing capper, compared to the more depressing finale of the '72 edition.
The said, the less we talk about the pointless, years-later sequel, Mechanic: Resurrection, the better.