Rosie Searle
It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.
Rexanne
It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny
Justina
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
Matt Greene
What it lacks in subtlety it makes up for in blandness. The performances are great, but they spend so much time uncomfortably staring directly through the screen and into my soul that I can't ignore the overtly broad and ridiculously conspiratorial dialogue. I really should've watched the original first.
Realrockerhalloween
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.
SnoopyStyle
Captain Ben Marco (Denzel Washington) leads an unit during Desert Storm that gets ambushed. Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber) is not particularly liked by the men but he becomes the hero who saves the unit. Corp. Al Melvin (Jeffrey Wright) comes to Marco with disturbing dreams. Marco also has the same dream and starts to investigate what really happened during the incident. The hero Shaw is pushed by his overbearing Senator mother Eleanor Prentiss Shaw (Meryl Streep) to become the VP nominee over rival Senator Tom Jordan (Jon Voight).I like this a little bit more than the original. I like the premise in this one but it's still outlandish. The acting is superior. Schreiber has a creepiness and Washington is a pure leading man. Meryl Streep is amazing as a stage-mom monster. I still have a problem with the premise. Also there is no surprise since it's a remake. Nevertheless, this is an effective remake.
Desertman84
The Manchurian Candidate is a thriller film based on the novel of the same title by Richard Condon.It The film stars Denzel Washington as Bennett Marco, a tenacious, virtuous soldier; Liev Schreiber as Raymond Shaw, a U.S. Representative from New York, manipulated into becoming a vice-presidential candidate; Jon Voight as Tom Jordan, a U.S. Senator and challenger for vice president and Meryl Streep as Eleanor Prentiss Shaw, also a senator and the manipulative, ruthless mother of Raymond Shaw.Miguel Ferrer, Ted Levine, and Dean Stockwell play key supporting roles.It was directed by Jonathan Demme.Major Bennett Marco and Sergeant Raymond Shaw are two soldiers who served in the same company during Operation Desert Storm, but their paths following their tours of duty have been very different. Shaw, the son of powerful congresswoman Eleanor Shaw, has used his reputation as a war hero to quickly scale the ladder of American politics, and with the help of his mother earns the Vice Presidential nomination. Marco, on the other hand, has been troubled with mental illness, and is convinced that something strange happened to him and his compatriots during the war. As Marco struggles to find the truth behind his nightmares and emotional torment, he unearths some disturbing facts about how his mind and body have been reworked by shadowy forces, as well as those of his fellow soldiers that includes Shaw.While it is not the classic its predecessor is, this remake is well- acted and conjures a chilling resonance.This humorless and nonsensical version is never quite engages, devolving the original's camp and satire into self-serious melodrama and it never approaches that level of intensity, intelligence, or audacity unlike the original.But nevertheless,it remains watchable due to great performances of the talented cast.
