The Manchurian Candidate

(Or how I mangled a classic)

Last year I was looking forward to seeing Jonathan Demme's remake of The Manchurian Candidate. Then people started reviewing it and it became obvious that something was being lost in translation, so we saved our dimes.

Saturday night we grabbed three titles at Blockbuster; Manchurian was one of them (the bad-movie annoyance quotient is exponentially smaller for rentals). We watched it last night.

If you ignore the pseudo-Halliburton uber-conspiracies, it's actually pretty entertaining. Better acting than the original, though nobody can replace Frank Sinatra for sheer moxie. Interesting plot tweaks--aside from the evil corporation supplanting the evil communists--with making Sgt. Shaw the political candidate.

I was pleasantly surprised. Didn't hate it like I thought I would; in fact, I kinda liked it.