True Lies/La Totale
IMDB was running slow…sorry.
There were a lot of remakes better than the originals, especially when some of the remakes were siloent productions that gutted the originals. For instance The Sea Beast was a version of Moby Dick that ended with a triumphant Captain Ahab (!!) returning to his Sweetheart(!!!). That’s wrong on so many levels that it’s amazing. Yet this was a mahor Hollywood production at the time.
As mentioned above, The Maltese Falcon was a remake, but the Huston version was actuallt the third one made.
similarly, the 1939 Wizard of Oz follws a succession of silent versions, mlostly really short ones. The Larry Semon version is the longest of these, but I’ve read recently that it’s not really indicative of his work (Semon was really popular in his day, and, like Jerry Lewis, was especially popular in France). The movie was a late effort of his, and flopped even at the time.
I thin that House of Wax was overall better than its predecessor Mystery in the Wax Museum, even without its 3D, but there are some aspects about the original that were better.
A lot of people think His Girl Friday was better than the Adolphe Menjou version of The Front Page.
The Fly.
You realize, I hope, that the recent shitty Stepford Wives movie with Nicole Kidman was itself a remake. I hope that’s the one you’re talking about here. The original with Katherine Ross was very good and very faithful to the novel. Also, I don’t think another faithful (or unfaithful) adaptation of the book would really be appropriate because its themes are pretty dated by now.
**
The Thing** - John Carpenter’s version vs the walking carrot. Not even a fair fight.
I’ve already tried to start a recast the classic TV show as a movie with
Have Gun, Will Travel starring Nathan Fillion as Paladin
Bonanza would make a great movie:
(with Hop Singh recast somewhat as less embarassingly stereotyped)
Ben: Jonathan Frakes http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000408/
Adam: Hugh Jackman http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0413168/
Little Joe: Nicholas Brendon http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0107183/
Hoss: Abraham Benrubi http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0072344/
Point of No Return was pretty near as good as La Femme Nikita, IMO. What was, notably, was more. More plot twists, bigger explosions, a couple more characters, better/more expensive production values, more over-the-top acting . . . That seems to happen whenever Hollywood remakes a foreign film. More. More, of course, is not necessarily better.