I had not heard of this film, but I had seen the original. What a classic.
Spoilers------
I love how he shows us how he imagines the plan will go. As soon as we come back to reality, and his fantasy of how everything will go ends, we know straight away that everything is not going to go to plan the moment he tries to meet her.
Really funny, clever film. May watch it again some time.
End of Spoilers-------------
But this film...ugh. When will Hollywood learn that remaking a Michael Caine movie, without Michael Caine in the lead, is not going to work.
Alfie was terrible. Get Carter sucked, and Sleuth sucked. (I am talking about the remakes, not the originals.) Some of these films were daring and groundbreaking, and the remakes chickened out on alot of those elements.
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The Abortion in Alfie, which causes him to reevaluate his life, is one example. In the remake, she has the child, but in the original, a woman he got pregnant, and who was already married to a friend, got an abortion. Not in a clinic, sadly, but a back alley abortionist. Alfie walks into the room afterwards, and sees the foetus, wrapped in a towel (not shown, but Alfie's reaction tells the whole story). This was controversial, and when the film was going to be shown in theatres in the states, the filmmakers were worried this plotline would lead to the film being ignored, and a flop. Or worse, raising a boycott. As we know, the film was a huge success in the USA, and the song 'What's it all about, Alfie?' became a major hit. The sequel...yeah, nobody talks about that because noone from the original was involved.
Sadly, as in every part of the world, we are going backwards as a society, and people are afraid to talk about abortion. So it was omitted from the remake. Even up until the recent 1980's, films could still have abortion elements in them. I mean a mega hit like Dirty Dancing featured abortion in it's storyline, but that was huge at the time, and still has a mega fan following. Even with Mitt Romney's 'Binder full of women' comment, what was one of the 'meme's that sprang up? 'Nobody puts Baby in a Binder', a parody of the now famous 'Nobody puts baby in a corner' line from DD.
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But this film? It looks terrible. They tried to make Firth look like Caine, but he's not, nor ever will be, Michael Caine. That's not to say he is a bad actor, but rather he is Colin Firth, nobody can be Colin Firth just like nobody can be Michael Caine.
Cameron Diaz? God. She posesses none of the skill or charm of Shirly McClaine. She's not even a 10th as good as Shirley McClaine, and never will be.
I am also very angry that the original writers and director are not getting any credit for this film. They have been omitted from the 'written by' credits in the film, and instead the Coens seem to be getting full credit.
Poor show, Hollywood.
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