12 Most Underrated Sci-Fi Movie Remakes Ever

Alright look, no one likes remakes. We get it!

After all, remember when Halloween helmer John Carpenter tried to escape the grimy world of teenage chillers by remaking that much-loved fifties sci-fi classic The Thing From Another World?

The remake he directed in 1982 flopped hard at the box office, proving viewers never want to see classic sci-fi reheated for a new generation, and—wait hang on, the eighties remake of The Thing is roundly beloved for being a genius retelling of the original story. Harsher, darker, and smarter than its fifties inspiration, the film is widely considered a masterpiece of sci-fi horror and one of the genre’s most enduring influences.

Okay fine, so that’s one good remake. But what about say, Cronenberg’s eighties remake of the classic fifties sci-fi The Fly? Oh right, that’s also considered far superior to the original, and is also an undeniable masterpiece adored by critics and audiences alike, which has proven almost as influential as Carpenter’s flick.

Huh. We’re starting to think some sci-fi remakes might actually not be so bad. Okay, so there was admittedly a string of woeful Paul Verhoeven remakes circa 2012 which put us all off the idea of revisiting classic sci-fi. But that’s because Verhoeven and PG-13 ratings go together like Tom Hooper and felines.

So to prove a point, we’ve assembled a list of sci-fi remakes often written off by critics which are actually—whisper it—pretty decent.

Yes, alright, so Roland Emmerich’s 1998 iteration of Godzilla is rightly roasted for its less-than-convincing CGI, and there are times when the titular city-eater looks like he might be unintentionally smirking at the camera due to the limitations of the yet-to-be-perfected technology. But the ambitious monster movie was met with critical drubbing upon its 1998 release, with most complaining that the film took the “dumb fun” approach of the director’s earlier Independence Day too far and left audiences with a film too silly to take seriously.

Then 2014 brought us Gareth Edward’s Godzilla, and audiences were shown just how self-serious a creature feature could be. The Monsters director offered a more portentous take on the material, but it’s hard not to think of Roland Emmerich’s comment about how Godzilla was his most popular film amongst children when watching the darker 2010’s reboot.

The Matthew Broderick starring flick is quicker and sillier than Edward’s offering, and honestly there’s an argument to be made for its taxicab-chomping anarchy in this age of frowny, quasi-philosophical blockbusters.