I’ve talked about the best remakes. I’ve talked about the worst remakes. There’s a specific kind of remake that I haven’t really discussed yet: The reboot. What is a reboot? First, let’s define remake. A movie remake is when a studio or film-maker takes an existing property and updates it for more modern audiences and more modern film-making techniques. It usually doesn’t alter the original story that much. The approach tends to be a bit more different, but the overall film will still feel somewhat familiar to fans of the source material, even if it has new actors, visual effects, and all that other good stuff. Reboots are a little trickier. A reboot is taking an existing franchise or story and starting from scratch: New story, new actors, new EVERYTHING. But why would a reboot need to happen in the first place? Sometimes, a franchise has either completely run out of ideas and needs a fresh start, or it has gone so completely off the rails(like The Fast and The Furious)that the only way to salvage the property is to wipe the slate clean. The movies that I’m going to list here are some of the best and some of the worst reboots to be made. Usually, a reboot stands a better chance of being successful, because it’s a restart. However, it doesn’t always work. Let’s begin:
The Worst: Mortal Kombat 2021
I knew going into Mortal Kombat that this was not going to be a good movie. My expectations were almost rock-bottom, but the movie still managed to disappoint me. The only thing that really worked about the movie were the scenes with Hiroyuki Sanada’s Scorpion and Joe Taslim’s Sub-Zero. When those two were on the screen it was AWESOME. It makes sense, because those two characters have literally been the face of the entire franchise since 1992. But when the film focuses more on Lewis Tan’s Cole Young and everyone else, the movie suffers. Yeah, it’s violent and gory, but that alone doesn’t make for a good movie. The entire film was marketed on the premise of its level of violence, and as such, didn’t have a whole lot to offer beyond that. The story is awful, the dialogue is basically dog-shit, and most of the characters are bland outside of Scorpion and Sub-Zero. You can chalk that up to an inexperienced first-time director, Simon McQuoid and first-time writer Greg Russo. The movie did well enough in theaters and HBO Max to get a sequel, but they need to get rid of the director and the writer. This wasn’t a whole lot of fun for me. You know it’s bad when Mortal Kombat: Annihilation is a far more entertaining movie, and that’s for all the WRONG reasons.
The Best: Batman Begins
Batman is one of the cornerstones of DC Comics. He was one of the first real superheroes besides Superman and Wonder Woman. So, he’s part of the trinity. There have been many attempts to bring the Dark Knight to life. Whether it was the Adam West TV series in the 60s or the Tim Burton films, Batman has always been a theatrical character. While Tim Burton’s Batman films were fantastic in their own right, Warner Bros wanted the follow-up movies to be more family-friendly, so Joel Schumacher was brought in to direct Batman Forever. To be fair, Forever wasn’t an awful Batman movie. I enjoyed it quite a bit. Tonally, it still had that dark edge that made Batman what he is, but it was bolstered by a lot of neon lighting and more one-liners. Batman and Robin brought the entire franchise to its knees, however, because it was such a bad film. Bad acting, bad casting, bad writing, bad story-telling. Nearly every aspect of Batman and Robin was a complete disaster. So, the studio hung up the cape while they tried to figure out how to bring the bat back. Enter Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer. These two brought a new and fresh perspective to Batman that hadn’t been seen before. The resulting film was Batman Begins, a new origin story that was darker, grittier, and more realistic than anything that had come before. Starring Christian Bale, Liam Neeson, and Morgan Freeman, Batman Begins was the movie that the shot in the arm that the franchise really needed. It was an outstanding film, and it led to one of the greatest sequels and superhero movies of all time: The Dark Knight.
The Worst: Terminator Dark Fate
I was debating whether or not to put Terminator: Genisys here instead of Dark Fate. Ultimately, I decided that Dark Fate belonged here, because despite the marketing and the return of Linda Hamilton as Sarah Conner and James Cameron as the producer, Dark Fate ended up repeating the same story beats from Terminator 2. While I admit the film had the balls to kill John Connor at the beginning, the rest of the film felt inconsequential. Instead of Skynet, our protagonists were up against Legion, ANOTHER A.I. hellbent on humanity’s extinction. Really? THAT’S all you’ve got to offer us? Just another evil computer villain? While I enjoyed the film, it did feel like more of the same. Genisys at least had the audacity to tinker around with the original timeline. People were not buying into Dark Fate‘s story and characters, despite Linda Hamilton being the best part. She was fantastic, and I liked the new Terminator, but this wasn’t the reboot the franchise needs. As a result, not only are NOT getting a sequel, but Terminator is being put back on the shelf until further notice. It’s just as well. The original two movies are the best.
The Best: Casino Royale
“The name’s Bond. James Bond.” The James Bond franchise is perhaps the longest-running film series in cinema. There are currently 24 OFFICIAL James Bond movies currently available with a 25th on the way. The character has seen multiple actors take on the role: Sean Connery was the first, followed by George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and finally Daniel Craig. Pierce Brosnan had one of the best films in the franchise with Goldeneye, but ended his tenure with one of the worst, Die Another Day. I wouldn’t say that was as bad a film as say Batman and Robin, but as a James Bond movie, it was a wreck, loaded with highly-questionable visual effects, including the worst CGI wave-riding sequence ever made. So, the studio and the producers of the franchise decided to take the character back to the beginning when he first became 007. While there was controversy around making James Bond blonde with Daniel Craig, Craig has since proven himself more than capable of being the infamous British spy. Casino Royale was released to outstanding reviews and audience reactions. It’s considered by many, including myself, to be the best Bond movie in the series. It really is. It was a more gritty and realistic take on the character, in the same way that Batman Begins approached their character. Here, we have a James Bond that is more human and makes mistakes. The opening assassination sequence shows how raw the character is before he really becomes the suave British spy that everybody knows and loves. The villain is also amazing with Mads Mikkelson playing Le Chiffre. Even Bond’s love interest is an incredibly strong and sassy woman. This is about as good a reboot as you can get.
The Worst: Hellboy 2019
I’m going to be truthful here, I actually like the Hellboy remake. I really do. I think it’s a lot of fun. That said, as a reboot: It fails. Back in 2004, Guillermo del Toro released his adaptation of Hellboy in theaters starring Ron Perlman as…Hellboy. While the film was a hit with fans and some critics, it wasn’t the box office smash that it really needed to be. In fact, it lost money. Still, del Toro went ahead with a sequel: The Golden Army. Again, people really enjoyed it, but not enough people went to the theaters and the movie bombed. That’s two bombs in a row for our demonic hero. So, director Neil Marshall(The Descent, Dog Soldiers)and actor David Harbour(Stranger Things)teamed up to give the world a new take on Hellboy. Except this time it was going be R-rated and super violent. The film was R-rated and super violent, and I loved those aspects of it. David Harbour was fantastic, but the movie tried too hard to be similar to del Toro’s films, and as a result, it didn’t connect with audiences. Aside from issues behind the scenes, there were a lot of problems with the script and the story. The main villain was Milla Jovovich as an evil sorceress. Didn’t quite buy it. Also, Hellboy is the descendent of King Arthur. What? Seriously? Mortal Kombat had the same issues with the focus and marketing being on the violence and gore and not enough emphasis on the story and characters. The Baba Yaga sequence, though, is one of the creepiest things I’ve seen in a movie, so there’s that, but everything else was just…mediocre.
The Best: Wrong Turn
Back in 2003, a little slasher movie by the name of Wrong Turn came and went without a whole lot of fuss. The thing is, that little horror flick was a ton of fun. It featured a group of 20-somethings being hunted by a trio of inbred cannibal hillbillies in the mountains of West Virginia. It was a straight-forward slasher movie that didn’t stray from the formula. It was gory, intense, and one of my favorite horror movie experiences. The first sequel, while direct-to-video, was almost as good, featuring mostly practical gore effects, and again a lot of fun. After that, things took…a wrong turn. The third movie was brought down by weak gore and visual effects, and terrible acting. It was followed up by three prequels that sought to explain the origins of these three mutant cannibals. Wrong Turn 5, ended up being one of the most mean-spirited horror movies I’ve seen in a long time. It had great gore and Doug Bradley was awesome, but the movie just felt incredibly mean for the sake of being mean. So, after the 6th movie, the franchise got sold to Lionsgate, and plans were in motion for a 7th film. Somewhere along the way, it was decided that a reboot was in order. It makes sense, the franchise had long since gone off the rails. So, in 2021, we got a new Wrong Turn movie. This film is the very definition of the word reboot. The only connections this movie has to the original series is the name, the location in West Virginia, and the guy that wrote the original movie: Alan McElroy. Instead of mutant cannibals, the villains of this film are a brutal hidden backwoods community called The Foundation. This is a pretty intense movie all around and it actually works, especially given the political issues surrounding everything. It’s a timely horror film if there ever was one. At two hours, it runs a little long, but it’s a solid reboot.
The Worst: Godzilla 1998
Like James Bond, the name Godzilla is one of the most recognized characters in cinema. First showing up in Gojira in 1954, the famous monster would go on to be featured in countless movies. Some great, some terrible. Even if you had never seen any Godzilla movie before, you know who and what he is and what he looks like. The creators/owners of Godzilla, Toho would eventually allow Hollywood to make their own version of Godzilla. Enter Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, the minds behind such classics as Universal Soldier, Stargate, and Independence Day. They would get their chance to make their very own Godzilla movie…and…oh, boy. There’s a special place in my heart for this movie, there really is. It delivers on the mass destruction that you would expect from a giant monster, but the writing is abysmal. Matthew Broderick as the scientific lead? Really? Hank Azaria as a news cameraman? The only actor here that I could buy as a French Secret Service agent was Jean Reno, and he steals the show. What about the creature itself? This ain’t Godzilla. It’s an over-grown irradiated iguana. The opening credits implied as much. It was bad. So bad, that Toho refused to let Americans make another movie, even though there was an animated series based on the 1998 film. No, Toho was pissed, so they started making Godzilla movies again. ‘Zilla, as he’s referred to these days makes an appearance in Godzilla: Final Wars only to be bitch-slapped by Godzilla-proper and blown to smithereens. Yeah, this wasn’t a good movie. Thankfully, Hollywood got another shot with the 2014 film, which was awesome. Godzilla still lives!
The Best: Star Trek 2009
Star Trek is one of the most recognizable franchises in pop culture. From the original series in the 60s to the new series that have shown up in the past couple of years, Star Trek has been a part of…well…everything for the past 50 years. It pushed boundaries, ideas, and is generally one of the most well-respected franchises ever. As far as movies go, the original 6 movies are classics for the most part, although most people will tell you that 2,4 and 6 are the best. The Next Generation-era of Star Trek films started with Generations which passed the torch from the old crew to the new, but it was bad movie. First Contact was the best film for the Next Generation crew. Sadly, Insurrection felt like an overlong episode, and Nemesis simply failed as a Star Trek movie. I loved Nemesis, but it had some serious script issues, including the ending. The movie also bombed at the box office, so Paramount, decided it was time to reboot the franchise. The main idea they had, and was the one that was actually used, was taking Trek all the way back to the beginning during Captain Kirk’s days at Starfleet Academy when he first meets Spock and Doctor McCoy. What makes this reboot so interesting is that it doesn’t flat-out dismiss the other movies, but instead sidesteps them in an alternate time-line. The story has a group of Romulans that end up going back in time to prevent the destruction of their planet, and because of they’re encounter with the Kelvin, things have changed. The U.S.S Kelvin was the ship that Kirk’s father served on, and that allowed for an emotionally powerful opening. But, the original Spock, played by Leonard Nimoy, also traveled back in time, so there was still a connection to the original time-line. It worked. The new movie followed the original crew, who were played by new cast members: Chris Pine as Kirk, Karl Urban as McCoy, Zachary Quinto as Spock, Zoe Saldana as U’hura, John Cho as Sulu, and Anton Yelchin as Chekhov. It was an amazing movie that still holds up after 12 years.
As you can see, reboots can be really good or really bad, depending on who is behind the camera. The best reboots are the ones that people will remember the most. The others? Not so much. Honestly, there’s not a movie on this list that I hate. I enjoyed them all, even the ones that suck as reboots. I’m a forgiving person like that. I’m all for reboots, provided that film-makers understand that rebooting a franchise can be a very risky proposition and could alienate fans and newcomers alike.