Funny Games (2007)
When I watched the 1997 original it started a deep fascination with Haneke’s films. This shot for shot remake 10 years later is basically impossible to review normally. If you have the choice, watch the original, but I think you can have an equally strong reaction to this - if that is what you see first.
Seeing it again made it mostly an intellectual exercise in trying to form an opinion on the differences, which mostly comes down to the actors, as everything else is for all intents and purposes identical. And my opinion is obviously colored by having seen the other one first, and I think the entire cast are giving it all they have. That said, I do think Naomi Watts lacks a bit in the beginning. She is less annoyed at the two young men, where Susanne Lothar played the ambiguity of forced politeness to other heights. I also have a bit hard time picturing Tim Roth as an upperclass operalistening type of man. Michael Pitt and Brady Corbet are just as sinister and scary as their counterparts in the 1997 version.
That this movie even exists when there was nothing wrong with the first one is totally unnecessary, but Haneke clearly has a message to deliver no matter what, and no other than himself could have remade this film.
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