MovieChat Forums > All the King's Men (2006) Discussion > Some classic movies should never be rema...

Some classic movies should never be remade

posted 12 years ago by topidea
4 replies | jump to latest

This is one of them. First of all, Sean Penn can't begin to fill the shoes of Broderick Crawford (who was born to play the lead character in this story). Despite an impressive list of supporting actors, they also failed to match the performances of the cast in the original 1940s version. Finally, the most striking few seconds of the original (where the bolts of a school fire escape pull loose from shoddy construction) was eliminated in the remake and replaced by a (boring) newspaper headline. If you're going to remake a great classic film, you better be able to improve it. In this case, they took an exciting, emotive film and turned it into a sluggish mess with actors who seemed to "phone-in" their performances. Please take the time to watch the original version for an entirely different experience.

[–] stewie-3 11 years ago

I tend to agree. I am generally a very big fan of Sean Penn as an actor, but I think he was the wrong choice to play Stark. I'll give him credit for putting a lot of effort into the role (something I don't think can be said for some of the other actors in the films), but he just didn't have the physical presence and demeanor I thought the part needed. Crawford's Stark was like a force of nature when he got going. Even when he was being friendly, there was that air of menace about him.

Overall, I think the 2006 movie was sort of "meh." I didn't think it was horrible, and if there hadn't been the 1949 film, I'd say it would be worth watching more than once. But the original film does exist, and I'll go back to that one any time.

[–] SweetSorcia 8 years ago

You do know this is based off of a book, right?

If you read the trivia section (right here on IMDB) it makes it pretty clear this was not meant to be a remake of the first movie. It is an adaptation of the original source material. Judge each one separately, not as if one is supposed to be an improvement on the other.

[–] kwestmo (4385) 2 years ago

If you have seen the original movie and read the book you would know this movie is a remake of the movie, not an adaptation of the novel. It has scenes from the original movie that ate not in the book

[–] HarlemEagle42 (17865) 2 years ago

I think the story can always lend itself to a new interpretation, but this one was just bland and predictable. Sean Penn is a good actor but we immediately are suspicious of his Willie Stark. There's little to no nuance with his portrayal. Not with that haircut.