Better Than The Original

Both are great films.

Esta es mi firma

I've seen the original, PONR and the first TV series. I liked them all.

To be perfectly honest, I have always had too much of a mad crush on Brigit Fonda to objectively decide which Nikita I like the best.

I also love Gabriel Byrne, so that puts this one in a special place.

Nobody's looking for a puppeteer in today's wintry economic climate.

yes lfn was borring and Anne Parillaud is not as good Bridget Fonda.

For one, I preferred Bridget Fonda's vulnerability and existentialist angst to Anne Parillaud's cynicism and primal rage. Say what you will about the movie overall, but for me, Fonda was the main key to my enjoying and preferring it to the original. Parillaud is too cold and distant for my sensibilities, whereas Fonda sets the stage for the characterization that would imbue the TV series with some humanity.

Actually, that's where Point of No Return is hurt. Fonda, right from the beginning, plays a generally well adjusted, wannabe street punk. as a result, she never goes through any significant change. She's the same at the end as she is in the beginning.

The fact Nikitta in the original starts out so cold and heartless is key to the movie's success. When she is conditioned into being what her superiors want, she is so vastly different from how she was in the beginning, and in the end is vastly different from even that. She goes through two character arcs over the course of the film, and the change is both clear and meaningful.

The problem with Maggie is, well, she was all ready well spoken, clean cut looking. In fact the fact she was so violent made NO sense in Point of No Return because nothing about the way she acted indicated she would be that violent. She was mostly just a smart mouth. Nikitta without question came off as someone who would stab someone with a pencil or shoot a cop at point blank range.

In the original, I simply didn't care whether any of the people in it lived or died. I was wholly indifferent. In the remake, I got a better sense that at least some of the characters might be human beings and not robots.

What are you talking about? Most of the characters in Nikita showed humanity. Most of the office workers, Nikitta's boyfriend, and Nikitta herself certainly showed emotion. Yeah, Bob didn't show much, but then he's a high level official who likely has to keep his emotions in check for the sake of his work. It's subtle, but we do see humanity in him.

I also felt that for a movie about ruthless spies and assassins, Americans are more believable in those roles than are the French.

and now things just get outright stupid.

The French, while having a history of extreme brutality that really shown bright during the Algerian War, just do not scare me in the same way that my fellow American countrymen do. The Germans kicked their butts, the Vietnamese kicked their butts, the Algerians did a whole lot of damage, etc., and so my ability to see a French film of this type is somewhat compromised. Don't get me wrong, the French can be ruthless Fascists, as we all know, but for a modern film, I almost feel that the plot works better when set someplace else.

I disagreed with your points before, but they were at least somewhat reasonable. The points after this, while I disagree, at at least reasonable.

This is just seriously stupid.

Yeah, it's easy to dismiss the violence of events like the French revolution, you who has never had to live through it. Neither have I, I don't even live in France. But to actually sit there and talk about atrocities and wars and rate them like you're comparing horror movies is not only insanely stupid, but downright degrading and inhumane.

You have to believe in a certain kind of lawful lawlessness in order to lose yourself in this kind of film, and the French setting just never did it for me in that regard. Change the setting to America, and I fully believe what is happening.

Again, the French revolution. Two of them, in fact. Their government was taken down and people were still dying left and right. That's pretty lawless.

Also, while it's trendy to love Jean Reno, especially because of all the similar roles he's played, I still think that Harvey Keitel is a much more menacing cleaner. I really believe that Harvey will kill anyone and everyone in the room, including children and babies,

Jean Reno's character shot someone just for walking too close to the car. In fact, he was more than eager to kill anything in his way, and only made an escape when he was pleaded to. The Keitel version just came off as someone wanting to get the job done and over with.

in order to make sure that there is no evidence. Jean is a much less menacing figure. There's too much humanity in Jean's eyes,

We can't even see jean's eyes until he's dead, so I think you're confusing Victor with Leon.


In addition, I had a greater appreciation for Gabriel Byrne's masculine energy, which felt more substantive than Tcheky Karyo's somewhat tired performance, looking throughout the film as if he was a refugee from the movie Insomnia.

and that's why Bryne felt almost goofy and out of place. Karyo's in a relatively high position in a very sensitive, underground organization that kills people left and right, taking on missions of the highest importance. I would expect someone like that to be highly reserved and keeping their emotions in check. Karyo was flat out intimidating, and was harder to read.

Bryne by contrast was completely obvious, unambiguous, and unthreatening.

I really believed that Byrne and Fonda might possibly "get it on," but I also believed there was a genuine platonic affection between the two as well, despite the ruthless nature of the business.

I preferred the ambiguity of the romance in the original, where you weren't sure how he felt about Nikitta until the end.

There was no intrigue with PONR's Bob because you knew exactly how he felt at all times.

"It's just you and me now, sport"-Manhunter

I really wish I'd never bothered watching this.

Not patch on Nikita which, for me, is a solid 8 out of 10.

This, I gave a 5. OK movie, but a cheap imitation.

LFN >>>> PoNR > LFN dubbed

The remake is a tepid copy but does have a few moments of quality. Years ago I rewatched both and liked both less. So even though the above ranking stands, all ships sunk with the tide of time in this case.