Best movie of this year hands down!

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Have you seen it? No? There is likely a very good reason for that...it stinks.Like nearly ALL the endless remakes and reboots that have been plaguing movie goers for the past decade or so....all this is, is a heartless version of the original.It has no heart.It has no soul.It is a retelling of a film that we all love and cherish...and it adds nothing to the story. It improves nothing but the special effects--which held up very well over time--and in some cases belittles the fans of the original...particularly in the fact that they remade the movie at all, without adding anything clever to it.Like so many other remakes it is a hallow shell of the original.

I went in a skeptic after seeing a few remakes that don't quite hold up to the original and came out a changed person at the love & care placed into the picture.Trying to stay closer to the novel, the story updates the war to Iraq with what seem like terrorists capturing The men for ransom. Here the plot thickens as we see quick imagery of solders and medical staff performing experiments.When rescued Remind Shaw returns home to his domineering mother who pushes him into the spot light for politics.Ben who stationed with him him, played by Washington, realizes he has blacks outs, his home tapped and a chip logged inside his neck.It almost feels like the same world from they live where humans are conditioned and brainwashed to believe what their told without question. Any sort of opposition is discouraged or oppressed and brand's the individual a lone.The movie does have a few loopholes that could easily be fixed with a few rewrites like Raymond blatantly assassinating a senator for his seat without security or witnesses? The technology to brainwash exists but are sloppy to hide it in hidden placed no one would think to look?While closer to the book, I was disappointed by his relationship to the senator omitted completely robbing it of its dramatic license unlike the original.Besides the few cons I listed the film was a simplistic nicely put together story with nice lighting, acting, music, editing and quite surprisingly some real suspense. Its one world I plan on visiting over and over again.

The remake of The Manchurian Candidate is one of the few Denzel Washington films I've never seen. To be honest, the story just didn't interest me that much, but it started streaming this month, so I gave it a shot. As expected, it's a someone complex story, that at times was difficult to understand, however an all-star cast manages to pull it together at the end. The story begins in Iraq during the Gulf War, when a U.S. Army platoon goes missing for three days. Even they were unaware of what happened to them, until one of the men starts having nightmares, and bodies start turning up. Denzel Washington plays the commanding officer, who takes it upon himself to investigate the strange deaths of his men, almost a decade later. As always, Washington is at the top of his game, giving off that infectious intensity, that keeps you on the edge of your seat through every step of the investigation. Washington is paired with Liev Schreiber who is one guy that has always just rubbed me the wrong way. It's not that he's a bad actor, there is just something about him and the characters he plays that is inherently unlikeable. He wasn't bad in this film, but being a similarly intense actor, meant that the chemistry with Washington was almost non-existent. The story is complicated and in the beginning of the film, it's going to be somewhat hard to watch. As the film proceeds and the elements become more clear, the film gets easier to watch, and the ending really pulls everything together. The Manchurian Candidate is one of those films that you think is going to be a bust, some people may even turn it off, but those who stick with it will see that it just gets better and better until a surprise ending brings it all together. If I were the writer of this film, I would have made the beginning of the film more intense and less confusing. The truth is the most important parts of a film are the beginning and the end, and without a strong opening, a lot of people will be turned off to the film and have the wrong attitude throughout. If you manage to stick with it, The Manchurian Candidate is great, but it does take a while to get there.

Ben Marco (Denzel Washington) was leading a group of men in the Persian Gulf War when they were ambushed. Things got a bit hazy after that for everyone, but the outcome was only two men of the company perished and the rest were saved by an underling, Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber). Flash forwarding several years, Ben is haunted by recurring nightmares. In his bad dreams, he and his men are being tortured in a room, with strange doctors and nurses. Raymond, far from a hero, appears to kill a fellow soldier. Yet, everyone who was involved in the incident long ago recites the same thing, Raymond was a hero and deserved a medal, Huh. Now Ray, although an odd duck, is an up and coming politician, schooled by his ambitious mother Eleanor (Meryl Streep) and inserted onto the Republican presidential ticket as the VP candidate. The assumed choice, Senator Jordan (Jon Voight) is upset. So is his daughter, Jocelyn (Vera Farmiga) a former love interest of Raymond's. Sensing his dreams are important, Ben begins to search into the history of Ray Shaw and others who were in their company. What he discovers is frightening. The soldiers may have been brainwashed, including candidate Shaw. As folks begin to die mysteriously, will anyone believe Marco's version of the truth, making for a dangerous man about to become an important leader? This is a spellbinding update of a classic. Now, instead of the Korean War, we have the Persian Gulf and a large corporation named Manchurian replaces a region in China. Nevertheless, the themes of mind control, brain washing and puppet leaders is very scary. The cast is superb, with special merit extended to Schreiber for a truly understated and sensitive character. Sets, costumes, script and direction are of the finest. Why not make it a viewing marathon and watch both versions back to back? Now, that's a candidate for an interesting evening!