If the first version of a film is dark and gruesome it doesn't that mean the new incarnation has to be. As with the right to rewrite the story, a film maker also has the right to alter the tone of the film. The lack of on screen violence and gore in this new version does lessen the impact of some scenes and the tone set by the shocking opening is significantly muted during the rest of the film. Yet the point is still made. To see a person brought to the point of feeling they have no way left to fight their faceless enemies than to blow themselves up on camera is powerful enough without over the top blood spatter. Some reviewers seem to have wanted to see scenes remade; where is the melting man or the frustrated robber, where is the rapist being shot in the family jewels? These scenes would have been completely out of place in a more cerebral film. Where they brought laughter in the original this is an altogether more serious exploration of living in a surveillance and information filled society. Instead the film choses to explore what it would mean to find yourself little more than a head and some lungs, the property of a corporation. The scene where the suit is taken away may be cool for younger viewers who wouldn't really understand its significance, but to an adult watching and empathizing it is a truly disturbing and thought provoking image. How would you react to knowing you would never touch your wife or child again while still being in the same room as them? Interestingly, the inclusion of the family make the character of Lewis somewhat moot which is why he plays a lesser role than Nancy Allen's excellent portrayal. Where the first film revelled in being over the top, this new film is all together more introspective and more intriguing for it.
I.T. Consultant, technophile and Doctor Who fan. I like to talk about tech, take films apart and make excuses for Doctor Who's continuity errors. No other show has the power to make me feel like a big kid.
