May 28, 2008
Bad movie remake alert
I first read Michael Crichton's "The Andromeda Strain" back in the '70s, when I found a copy of the novel atop a neighbor's trash can (not an editorial comment, I hope!) during an afternoon outside with the other local kids.
A science fiction thriller, written in the dry style of an after-action memo, "The Andromeda Strain" documented the aftermath of a microscopic extraterrestrial lifeform brought back to Earth on a military satellite. The first notable side effect of contact with the invader is some form of psychosis, after which the blood -- all of it -- coagulates, wiping out Piedmont, a small town in the American southwest.
The book details the efforts of a small team of scientists in a hidden, subterranean facility to figure out what makes Andromeda tick, and how to kill the bug, before it spreads and does to the rest of the world what it did to Piedmont.
It's not exactly a thriller -- there's too much pseudo-hard science for that -- but more of a procedural, earning the reader's suspension of disbelief via the attention to detail and credible recreation of the "sound" of government reports and documentaries of such momentous events, recounted in the cool, dispassionate tones of a long-lost and now-disfavored journalistic style.
The novel, which established the young physician -- and best-selling author -- as a star, was quickly optioned and turned into a smart film preserving the quasi-documentary feel of the source. The scenes in the small town were eery in the extreme, spacesuit-clad scientists moving through silent streets, bodies laying where the residents had been struck down in stride.
I'll never forget the moment when one of the scientists took a scalpel and opened a vein on one of the corpses ... and reddish sand poured out!
The audience recoiled at that, let me tell you (it was a more innocent time), and I had to walk into the lobby for a couple of minutes to calm down.
The movie is not filled with Slam! Bang! KA-POW! action moments; rather, it treats the audience with respect, with (mostly) plausible twists and turns, aided by great performances from the actors, including David Wayne and the invaluable and utterly serious Arthur Hill.
So I was interested when I heard that an updated version of "The Andromeda Strain" was being readied for broadcast on A&E, although wary that it would be jazzed up and dumbed down for the presumably moronic modern viewer.
According to Ed Morrisey, my fears were justified.
Yesterday, I wrote that the first half of the remake of The Andromeda Strain provided a fun ride if one didn’t mind the story getting dumbed down into a Lifetime Channel set of characters and the addition of several hysterically paranoid subplots. It at least beat the pacing of the original, even if it lacked the tautness of the science and the first movie’s realism. I described it as a loss of 30 IQ points. Well, if that was the case, then the finale dropped the IQ level to barely sentient in an implosion not seen since Hollow Man.
[...]
The ending provides the biggest unintentional laughs. The military doctor has been designated the key man, the one who has to stop the self-destruct sequence of the laboratory that will provide unimaginable power to Andromeda for mutations. Unlike in the novel, he dies when he falls in the tunnel into a pool of water used by the nuclear reactor, just as he hands off the key that will stop the sequence to the project leader. Unfortunately, the key sequence requires the military doctor’s thumb for identification, which leads another doctor to do a Mr. Spock (Wrath of Khan) and go into the water to cut off the thumb. He then throws the thumb straight up for two stories to the project leader who’s hanging on the side of the wall, complete with a close-up, slo-mo sequence of the thumb tumbling towards the hero as the self-sacrificing doctor dies in a pool of water that wouldn’t be radioactive anyway.
It provides a perfect analogy to the entire movie. The only way this mess should get a thumbs-up is if a reviewer cut one off in protest and threw it in the air. The rest of the ending is fairly anticlimactic, with a few assorted assassinations as everyone starts covering up the government’s role in the affair. Everyone’s loved ones suddenly finds themselves free of the personal problems that plagued them. The President declares that he’ll continue vent mining despite the strongly-worded memo from the future, which makes sense; I’d try to kill Future Earth too, after a stunt like Andromeda.
What a shame. It could have been interesting; instead, it gives a peek into the mind of the politically-correct paranoids who produced this dreck.
I'm glad I spent the last two nights doing something far more entertaining and enjoyable -- dinner with friends and bowling in a league -- than watching this crap-tastic remake.
If you haven't read the novel or seen the original film, give them a shot. And by all means, take Ed's warning to heart and avoid -- like the plague -- the new "Andromeda Strain."
Posted by Mike Lief at May 28, 2008 07:21 AM
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Comments
Well I wish I had read this before I watched both Parts 1 & 2 on A&E last night. I was extremely confused by the end of the movie, and yes the thumb scene was ridiculous! I think I need to go rent the original!
Posted by: April at May 28, 2008 11:12 PM
I've read the book as a kid - numerous times, and the same for the original movie. Awesome. This one - not as good.
I did like the 1st half to a certain degree, it followed somewhat close to the original and I liked the way they threw in the intrigue and assassinations and blame throwing. A lot like real life in the beltway, don't you agree? THAT was what made it more realistic than the science, and was more interesting than the other stuff.
The 2nd half tanked, and went too far in trying to get you to suspend disbelief. OK. So, a germ gets sent back from the future - thru a wormhole no less - so they can tell us how to fight it using the germ itself to send the message IN ASCII. So they can then stuff it into storage in the ISS for the cycle to happen all over again. *hack* And all the scientists asking too many "what ifs" that happen to end up as fact.
I'd like to punch Ridley Scott and the screen writer.
Posted by: sonarman at May 29, 2008 04:16 PM