Like it or not, A Nightmare On Elm Street 2010 speaks to a new generation. This is a sad generation of repression and apparent Attention Deficit Disorder, with sad, stupid parents, who would rather pump their kids full of pills than confront any issues head-on, and would rather burn an alleged pedophile to death than, you know, even think about calling the police or anything like that. It's a stupid movie about stupid people, and I couldn't have possibly cared any less what happened to any of them.
We learn that this Freddy Krueger fellow was a gardener who lived in the basement at a preschool (as most gardeners do), and he may or may not have molested the kids. Spoiler alert: he did. Surprised? The parents tracked him down and burned him to death without any evidence or police involvement whatsoever, they somehow got away with it scott-free, and as the years went by, the kids not only forgot all about Krueger, but also forgot they even knew each other. As we all know, repressed memories can come back to haunt you in terrible ways, and this case is about as bad as it gets because Freddy Krueger comes back as a ghost or something with the ability to kill them in their dreams for some reason. I suppose he wants revenge. His plan is to pick off all the kids that he molested in the past. Does he enjoy it, does he get some kind of satisfaction out of it? What does he do in his off-time? What will he do once his mission is complete? I haven't the foggiest idea.
There's a lot of problems with this movie. Mainly with the script, which is desperately adapted from Wes Craven's original (ahem) HORROR MASTERPIECE of the same name. Strange, arbitrary changes are made to the Freddy character which immediately strip him of any mystique (an impressive misstep when you think about it, it usually takes about 3 or 4 sequels to do that), key moments from the original are reassembled out of context and make little sense and feel forced (God forbid they'd try to come up with their own iconic imagery), and the dialogue is so full of exposition, it would have Bond villains shaking their heads in disbelief.
There's very little I liked about A Nightmare On Elm Street 2010, though I did like Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy, and when you get right down to it, the only reason you're seeing a 'Nightmare' film is for Freddy anyway, and an interesting plot with likable characters would probably only serve as a bonus, so, in that respect, they got the job done with the casting of Haley alone. I'm not the kind of person who would whine that Robert Englund is the only person who should play Freddy, though I know he planted the flag and he will always be the best, but he and Wes Craven helped create a character that became much bigger than the actors who portray him, so I couldn't think of a better choice than Haley to temporarily fill the shoes. He does a great job as Freddy. He very obviously put a lot of effort and respect into the role; it's apparent every second that he's on the screen. It's just too bad the movie was lousy.
There's always the temptation to get a little nostalgic when it comes to all these remakes, but I'm not a purist, I was actually very excited about this movie but was ultimately let down. I can remember sitting there in that dark theater, trying to convince myself that what I was viewing was really good. I lost that battle. It wasn't good. Remake or not, sometimes a bad movie is just a bad movie. The original 1984 film was limited by its budget, so maybe the special effects don't hold up spectacularly well by today's standards, but you could tell the movie had heart. Wes Craven made a film that delved much deeper than the average slasher flick. Surely the concept of dreams wasn't just an interesting gimmick for new ways to kill teenagers: they were used as an arena where the dreamer is left completely alone, forced to explore and confront their deepest fears. Here we have the polished 2010 update, with all the money in the world a film with such imagination could hope for, and it's really just content to pop up and yell, "boo!" How disappointing.
We learn that this Freddy Krueger fellow was a gardener who lived in the basement at a preschool (as most gardeners do), and he may or may not have molested the kids. Spoiler alert: he did. Surprised? The parents tracked him down and burned him to death without any evidence or police involvement whatsoever, they somehow got away with it scott-free, and as the years went by, the kids not only forgot all about Krueger, but also forgot they even knew each other. As we all know, repressed memories can come back to haunt you in terrible ways, and this case is about as bad as it gets because Freddy Krueger comes back as a ghost or something with the ability to kill them in their dreams for some reason. I suppose he wants revenge. His plan is to pick off all the kids that he molested in the past. Does he enjoy it, does he get some kind of satisfaction out of it? What does he do in his off-time? What will he do once his mission is complete? I haven't the foggiest idea.
There's a lot of problems with this movie. Mainly with the script, which is desperately adapted from Wes Craven's original (ahem) HORROR MASTERPIECE of the same name. Strange, arbitrary changes are made to the Freddy character which immediately strip him of any mystique (an impressive misstep when you think about it, it usually takes about 3 or 4 sequels to do that), key moments from the original are reassembled out of context and make little sense and feel forced (God forbid they'd try to come up with their own iconic imagery), and the dialogue is so full of exposition, it would have Bond villains shaking their heads in disbelief.
There's very little I liked about A Nightmare On Elm Street 2010, though I did like Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy, and when you get right down to it, the only reason you're seeing a 'Nightmare' film is for Freddy anyway, and an interesting plot with likable characters would probably only serve as a bonus, so, in that respect, they got the job done with the casting of Haley alone. I'm not the kind of person who would whine that Robert Englund is the only person who should play Freddy, though I know he planted the flag and he will always be the best, but he and Wes Craven helped create a character that became much bigger than the actors who portray him, so I couldn't think of a better choice than Haley to temporarily fill the shoes. He does a great job as Freddy. He very obviously put a lot of effort and respect into the role; it's apparent every second that he's on the screen. It's just too bad the movie was lousy.
There's always the temptation to get a little nostalgic when it comes to all these remakes, but I'm not a purist, I was actually very excited about this movie but was ultimately let down. I can remember sitting there in that dark theater, trying to convince myself that what I was viewing was really good. I lost that battle. It wasn't good. Remake or not, sometimes a bad movie is just a bad movie. The original 1984 film was limited by its budget, so maybe the special effects don't hold up spectacularly well by today's standards, but you could tell the movie had heart. Wes Craven made a film that delved much deeper than the average slasher flick. Surely the concept of dreams wasn't just an interesting gimmick for new ways to kill teenagers: they were used as an arena where the dreamer is left completely alone, forced to explore and confront their deepest fears. Here we have the polished 2010 update, with all the money in the world a film with such imagination could hope for, and it's really just content to pop up and yell, "boo!" How disappointing.