MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (2004)

Starring: Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, Liev Schreiber, Jon Voight, Kimberly Elise

It's hard to watch a remake of a movie without comparing it to the original......and so I have to compare the two during this review. Sorry. I'll reserve my comment on which I think is better until after the initial play-by-play....

So, what the hell is a Manchurian Candidate anyways? Depends on which version you watch. In the 2004 one, Manchurian refers to Manchurian Global, a very Halliburton-esque type company that will pretty much stop at nothing to make itself the biggest power under the sun. In the 1962 version, it's actually referring to the area in China. I'll stop the comparisons, for now. Anyways, the movie starts the viewer back during the first Gulf War, or actually, shortly before the full fledged battle began. We meet up with Denzel Washington as the Capt in charge and Liev Schreiber as the NCO in charge of a small troop of soldiers to measure Iraqi troop strength in Kuwait. Well, after the mission is done and the guys are heading home, all hell breaks loose. Two people die, and after 3 days of wandering, the remainder of the troop returns, thankful for the heroics of Liev Schreiber. He earns a Medal of Honor, and we flash forward 13 years to today. Liev is now a Vice Presidential candidate, and Denzel is a Major who keeps having these dreams that insist that what he thinks happened really didn't. And what he remembers is extremely unpleasant. Meryl Streep is Liev's mother, who is a powerful senator that will make sure her son is put in the White House. And that's pretty much the first 30 minutes. It's a great story, and it goes to great lengths to make sure that it is different than the original movie so that anyone who has seen that one is going along for the same ride, which I was appreciative of. There were quite a few similar elements that the movies shared though, including the fateful visit by Raymond Shaw (Liev's character) to the Senator's lakeshore house, the meeting on the train between Denzel and a ladyfriend, and the fateful political evening that serves as the climax of the movie.

But so much has also changed that, like I said before, even though I had seen the old movie, this one was different. And boy is it different. It is highly enjoyable to watch this movie, but throughout it was just too hard to watch it separately from the old one. I wonder what it was like to watch this without seeing the original. Because you see, Meryl Streep's character just isn't as ferocious and evil as Angela Lansbury was in the original, and that role alone made the original movie something to remember. She's a bitch, that's for sure, but you don't get the pure malice feeling from her. Different times, I guess. But go see the original for a shocker to see Angela Lansbury as someone who'd poke your eye out than speak hello to you. Seriously. This one also has so many......'stretches' that need to be taken for granted. There's quite a bit where you just have to go....Huh? The original movie was simple and thus believable. This modern take puts you in the position of saying, okay, it's a movie, so I'll buy it. The first one didn't require that.

So would I recommend seeing this? Yeah.....on video or cable. It's well done and well put together, but if you want a recommendation for a movie to see, get the original on DVD. That movie will blow your mind. And when you think of when it was made and the things that they pulled off, it's incredible.

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