I only saw this movie because I had some coupons for free videos and decided to finally see how bad it was.
I've read some of the reviews here and everyone pretty much agrees that it is a ludicrous, pointless failure. So I will limit my comments mostly to observations I didn't see in the other reviews.
It's full of careless touches. For instance, during the murder of Marion, the knife is totally clean and shiny each time it comes up after stabbing her. It never gets any blood on it.
No one carries parasols on sunny days except elderly Chinese women, and haven't any time from the fifties up to the present.
Choosing this talentless actor to play Norman Bates didn't have to be a total loss. Many killers have that bland kind of baby face. However, he did not carry it off. In fact, no one really could carry it off because of the way it was filmed, supposedly shot for shot like the original. Unfortunately that forces you to compare them.
If the movie had been shot from a different angle, say the same story but retold in a new way, it could have been fun. But slavishly following the scenes and camera angles while throwing in the occasional thing that wasn't in the original is just jarring.
In the original, Lila finds a mysterious book in Norman's boyhood bedroom which has no name on the spine. It is clear from her reaction it is horrendous pornography. But in the remake it's been changed to a skin mag, in case the unmarked book was too subtle for today's "stupid" audience. I just want to say, if people are stupider it is because no one allows them to think and figure things out anymore. Everything is now laid out in graphic detail.
William H. Macy, in choosing to wear a parody of a 50s fedora, immediately turns the movie into a cartoon. He overplays the detective in such a campy way that it doesn't fit in with the attempts by the others to play it straight.
This is purely a vanity project by the director and should not have been released at all - it is without merit. Watching it reminded me of the time I saw a stage play of Send Me No Flowers, and afterward saw the movie with Rock Hudson and Doris Day. There was no comparison, the movie had eliminated half the humor of the stage play by casting actors who read their lines too broadly, and by changing the dialogue.
This remake of Psycho could have been better with a more relaxed attitude about following the exact blocking of the scenes. This just makes you feel tense to see where they do and do not depart from the original. And if the Anne Heche and Julianne Moore roles had been reversed it would have been superior. No one cares if Anne Heche's Marion is killed; she has failed to make her character likeable as Janet Leigh did, whereas if Julianne Moore were killed off in the beginning it would be more upsetting.
Last but not least, I have to say that Tony Perkins made the original Psycho what it was. Even though others have pointed it out, I must reiterate that this is the major, major problem with any remake. He was so effective in it that it typecast him as a psycho for the rest of his life. New audiences would not realize that Tony Perkins was previously cast in normal, romantic movies. When his flair for the nervous twitch was discovered it was all over for any other kind of role.
Whereas this bland actor who tried to portray a psychopathic killer can go on tomorrow and play any kind of role under the sun.
This was not the way to pay tribute to Alfred Hitchcock, but everyone knows this by now.Hopefully people will lay off this remake idea now
In closing I want to point out that Hitchcock remade his own Man Who Knew Too Much and IMPROVED it. Now, if this Psycho was truly Hitchcockian it would have been greater than the original. That did not happen!
I've read some of the reviews here and everyone pretty much agrees that it is a ludicrous, pointless failure. So I will limit my comments mostly to observations I didn't see in the other reviews.
It's full of careless touches. For instance, during the murder of Marion, the knife is totally clean and shiny each time it comes up after stabbing her. It never gets any blood on it.
No one carries parasols on sunny days except elderly Chinese women, and haven't any time from the fifties up to the present.
Choosing this talentless actor to play Norman Bates didn't have to be a total loss. Many killers have that bland kind of baby face. However, he did not carry it off. In fact, no one really could carry it off because of the way it was filmed, supposedly shot for shot like the original. Unfortunately that forces you to compare them.
If the movie had been shot from a different angle, say the same story but retold in a new way, it could have been fun. But slavishly following the scenes and camera angles while throwing in the occasional thing that wasn't in the original is just jarring.
In the original, Lila finds a mysterious book in Norman's boyhood bedroom which has no name on the spine. It is clear from her reaction it is horrendous pornography. But in the remake it's been changed to a skin mag, in case the unmarked book was too subtle for today's "stupid" audience. I just want to say, if people are stupider it is because no one allows them to think and figure things out anymore. Everything is now laid out in graphic detail.
William H. Macy, in choosing to wear a parody of a 50s fedora, immediately turns the movie into a cartoon. He overplays the detective in such a campy way that it doesn't fit in with the attempts by the others to play it straight.
This is purely a vanity project by the director and should not have been released at all - it is without merit. Watching it reminded me of the time I saw a stage play of Send Me No Flowers, and afterward saw the movie with Rock Hudson and Doris Day. There was no comparison, the movie had eliminated half the humor of the stage play by casting actors who read their lines too broadly, and by changing the dialogue.
This remake of Psycho could have been better with a more relaxed attitude about following the exact blocking of the scenes. This just makes you feel tense to see where they do and do not depart from the original. And if the Anne Heche and Julianne Moore roles had been reversed it would have been superior. No one cares if Anne Heche's Marion is killed; she has failed to make her character likeable as Janet Leigh did, whereas if Julianne Moore were killed off in the beginning it would be more upsetting.
Last but not least, I have to say that Tony Perkins made the original Psycho what it was. Even though others have pointed it out, I must reiterate that this is the major, major problem with any remake. He was so effective in it that it typecast him as a psycho for the rest of his life. New audiences would not realize that Tony Perkins was previously cast in normal, romantic movies. When his flair for the nervous twitch was discovered it was all over for any other kind of role.
Whereas this bland actor who tried to portray a psychopathic killer can go on tomorrow and play any kind of role under the sun.
This was not the way to pay tribute to Alfred Hitchcock, but everyone knows this by now.Hopefully people will lay off this remake idea now
In closing I want to point out that Hitchcock remade his own Man Who Knew Too Much and IMPROVED it. Now, if this Psycho was truly Hitchcockian it would have been greater than the original. That did not happen!