by MARK SLUTSKY

On the face of things, there's nothing particularly wrong with remaking old movies - if a director can re-tell an old story and do it well, more power to them. Some directors, including Alfred Hitchcock and Cecil B. DeMille, have even remade their own movies, and nobody complains about that. But in the last decade things have gotten out of hand, with such notably bad remakes as Planet of the Apes and Mr. Deeds.

So it's not entirely surprising that Jean-François Richet's recent take on John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 is yet another example of this unfortunate phenomenon. It takes a great, distinctive action thriller and turns it into a crappy cop shoot-out that has only a borrowed premise going for it.

In this 2005 version, the action has been moved from California to Detroit, where Emotionally Damaged Cop (Ethan Hawke) is packing up the old precinct on New Year's Eve, along with Saucy Secretary (Drea de Matteo) and Grizzled Vet (Brian Dennehy). There's a crazy snowstorm outside, so a prisoner transport vehicle stops at the station to lock up master criminal Marion (Laurence Fishburne) until the weather clears. All seems fine until the station is suddenly under attack by a gang of evildoers intent on capturing Marion.

Ironically, Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 was kind of a remake itself, relocating 1959 cowboys-under-siege picture Rio Bravo in an abandoned L.A. police station, circa 1976. But there were so many cool things about Carpenter's classic: the wicked synth score, the spooky silenced bullets, the unbelievably shocking "ice cream scene" (I won't spoil it for you if you haven't seen it). Richet's version, on the other hand, has… none of these things. Not only that, but screenwriter James DeMonaco has taken some unnecessary liberties with the plot, like making the assailants crooked cops instead of gang members, which serves no purpose but to make the movie even more generic. Don't waste your time with this turd! Go rent the original! You'll have a much better time and save some money too!

Assault on Precinct 13 is now playing

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