SunnyHello
Nice effects though.
ShangLuda
Admirable film.
Tayyab Torres
Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.
Wrightclairelouise
The Prisoner (remake) loved it.... Sir Ian Mckellen was outstanding As in fact the whole cast was.Wonderful no words A real Snap short of humanity. Both heartbreaking and hopeful everyone should see. The writing was subtle and I found the actors them selfs, spoke volumes, When not a word was said. And the new character of 11-12 number 2 (Ian Mckellen) son, played by Jamie Campbell Bower ( this young talent, has such promise ) has indeed a true gift. Shows how this world they have created shapes and affects those who had no say in the matter.(humanity as a whole, if you will) And why they make the choices that will in fact define them. Utterly brilliant what TV should be like A journey
admatha-767-524200
I have no complaints with the acting in this movie - in fact the acting was the only part that I really enjoyed. The story itself was awful. It's a great example of why I hate Lost and how heavily it has continued to influence serial television - Lost was popular, let's do the Lost thing of never telling our audience anything. Well, I despised Lost and I stopped watching it in the second season, and I despise Lost for making it so that every television show I watch feels the need to continue drawing things out for ever and ever and ever and ever. I thought that perhaps 6 episodes would be tolerable but no, even six feels like forever. At 40 minutes an episode it works out to 4 hours, and as someone who felt BBC's Pride & Prejudice was the perfect length, let me tell you - The Prisoner *felt* like about a hundred. I kept thinking "I get the feeling this would have worked excellently as a movie" but actually I was wrong, because, whether you've just sat through 2 hours or 4 hours or 2 seasons, the ending is *bad*. And I do not refer to being unsatisfied that it wasn't a happier ending, I refer to being unsatisfied with it *as* an ending. I am irritated that I kept going in the hopes that eventually something would happen but no, all that happens is that eventually we get a wishy-washy half-assed "science!" explanation for everything that has been going on and ... that's it. I went and read the synopsis of the original show - which I kind of wish I'd done beforehand, might have saved me some time - and it appears that viewers then had as frustrating and rage-inducing a finish as viewers of the remake have. All I can say is that as much as I like Ian McKellan, I'd like my 4 hours back, please.
Livewire242
I've seen old-series purists' reviews and I've seen new-series apologists' reviews, and I agree with both of them, for the most part. This is not a bad series. However, when you create a remake or a reboot or a continuation of some sort, you own an homage to the original. More than just a pennyfarthing bicycle hanging on one of the sets. Simply, it should not have been called "The Prisoner" if they planned to stray so far from the original concept.I was particularly disappointed when they started the series with an escaping prisoner wearing a suit in the style of the 60s series. That suggested to me that The Village had continued to exist through the decades, and that this was just a new story in the history of The Village. Not so. This is not the original Village.Caviezel, as others have said, was miscast. His constantly bewildered expression doesn't exactly cry out, "I am a free man!"
ukproject
I had to give the upgraded version of The Prisoner full marks purely because of the stuck in the mud fans of the original who rush to give it 1 star while wishing they could give even less. It seems that they are prisoners of 'The Prisoner'. If it were not for this I would have given it a 9.0. The groundbreaking original is easily a 10.What I find surprising is that fans who claim to appreciate the original fail to see the brilliance of the new version. I wonder if they even get the original series or is it just a one eyed teddy bear from their childhood that they just cannot let go of?? While paying homage to and respecting the original, the new version boldly crafts it's own story that makes you think about the same issues that the original did such as control and free will. The only difference being that instead of using the cold war, spy culture and the power of government as the backdrop, it applies relevant issues such as corporations, globalisation and the power of marketing.This switch in backdrop was vital and very very well done. With the face off between the Soviet Union and the rest of the free world in the 60's, the concept of being on a side had meaning. The dynamics were much simpler than they are now.Now, with the advent of globalisation with corporations and their marketing culture spreading across the globe, there is no side. How could there be? We are feeding the entities that imprison us. Indeed, the concept that The Prisoner V2.0 alludes to that 'there is no out, only the village' is already a growing reality in todays world. A while back, you could go to another country and tell instantly that you were no longer back home. It is no longer so easy. Now if you travel to almost any city in the world you see the same restaurant chains, clothing brands, internet cafés, shopping malls, coffee shops, music videos, TV channels, adverts telling you how to live and what to buy......there is no escape.Pin numbers, i.d's, passwords, facebook pages and twitter accounts, stored personal information on databases all over the world, our lives are getting more and more depersonalised. You are no longer a person, you are an IMDb user name, an email address, a facebook page. In today's world, you ARE a number. In today's world, we are all number 6's. In today's world, there is no information that we have that 'they' do not already have. If anything, they have more information about us than we do ourselves. The whole concept of 'knowing' someone is being replaced by 'having information' about someone. When you now call an organisation, whatever appears on their screen is who you are.So where the No. 2 in the original version wanted information and No. 6's main aim was to abstain from giving any, in the new version No. 2 just wants no. 6 to accept the Village as his reality. In the original it was therefore much easier for No. 6 to be defiant whereas now there really is not much difference between the village and the real world. I particularly enjoyed the reference to soap operas and their mind numbing effects. Who needs brainwashing and hypnosis when your subjects willingly sit in front of a TV and allow your message to infiltrate their thoughts. For me one of the main criteria of anything I watch nowadays is 'does it make you think?' and the Prisoner V2.0 definitely ticks that box.Add the production values, and the whole package comes together beautifully. The background music has a beautiful melancholy feel to it, the visuals are stunning and the story is well paced. Whereas the original village set in Portmeirion in Wales had a quirky character all of it's own, the new village is set in the middle of a desert and has a surreal, mirage-like feel to it. Both of them very good in their own ways. Two aspects however in which I feel that V2.0 upstages the original are the characters of number 2 superbly played by Sir Ian McKellan, and the ending. Having recently watched the original once again I started to try to figure the ending out yet again even though Patrick McGoohan himself has stated that there isn't any meaning. They simply did not know how to tie the series up.The Prisoner V2.0 has an ending that requires considerable thought, but does make up a complete picture even if an odd piece of the jigsaw may be missing. Overall though as so often with Sci-Fi, some suspension of belief is required but there is a resolution in the end that makes watching all 6 episodes very satisfying.If I do have a criticism, then it would be that the new incarnation of The Prisoner should have been condensed and released as a big budget movie instead of a television series. I am quite sure that it would have done reasonably well. Unfortunately as a TV series, a large percentage of viewers will consist of original purists who will trash the new version regardless of what it is like and a lot of sci-fi fans who would have appreciated this masterpiece will simply never get to see it.EDIT: I've now bought the Blu Ray box set to sit besides my DVD box set of the original. The 5.1 sound and crisp picture quality is superb.
