MrWeenie

I don't think I can rate this higher than the original based on better special effects, because then you're only grading the present state of technology as better. That aspect of this you'll probably find more enjoyable, naturally.

I think also that the original was made for a younger audience being influenced by Buck Rogers and Star Wars, undoubtedly a decision by the studio to cash in on a trend. This new version is slightly freer to be itself.

Where the new version is not freer, however is that it is just the latest action movie, another Godzilla vs Kong, another Transformers. Accordingly, its drama scenes are not as intense as in the original. I think this enabled Lynch to do a better job of explaining the complexities of the plot and he even did so in a shorter runtime.

I think in the end, I enjoyed that the remake is less goofy and has better effects, but I wish it had been better at storytelling. There was something lost in this version on that end which, again, may've been a producer's decision.

The opening credits go on longer than I can remember in anything else. Then, the movie transitions into a slow drama with not-so-well written dialogue and uninteresting characters. After about a half-hour of that, the movie finally has its first scene that I could care about. And then the story is kinda okay. But, it almost seems like, between the slow opening and the slow development, there was an attempt to stretch a one-hour piece, maybe a pilot, into a movie.

The monster is really cool though. So, I was a little generous with my rating.

It was not the full three-sixty on the band, but centers on their sound in the Reed-Cale era and rather than spend much time on theory, it focuses on who Lou and John were as people in order to explain it, delving into the environment they lived and created in. It also eventually compares them to contemporaries, but again, here it prefers to compare who they were in attitude and emotion. When John and Lou split, when the band starts winding down, the movie also starts winding down. I'm fine with all that. Visually, I felt like it was interesting, but not mind blowing. Personally, I didn't need to it to be a visual masterpiece to be satisfying. I didn't need it to interview every former flat mate or girlfriend, I didn't need it to chase down every subplot in the band, I didn't need a happy ending. I wanted a piece on Lou and John and what made the band what they were. It's a two-hour piece on that.