A bland remake of a classic film

The fact that Jonathan Demme's remake doesn't live up to the original comes as little surprise, unfortunately the film fails to impress even when taken on it's own merits. Pedestrian and uninvolving, it had me checking my watch within the first hour. It takes forever for the film to set up the basic premise and then never really delivers on it. The plotting is obvious and often ludicrous, leaving some gaping holes along the way.

'The Manchurian Candidate's main strength is in its fine cast, but not the leading man. Washington just seems to sit there in the middle of the screen for long periods, offering nothing of interest until he switches into his twitchy, sweaty, paranoid mode. It's probably the least engaging performance I've ever seen from this normally compelling actor.

Meryl Streep delivers her usual strong performance as Raymond Shaw's mother, and she gets all the best lines, but the real stand-out is Liev Schreiber as Shaw. He's convincingly slick as the aspiring polititian but also vulnerable and racked with doubt when he needs to be. John Voight is excellent in an all-too-brief role but Kimberly Elise is saddled with a very poorly-conceived character that she can't do much with.

The most disappointing thing about 'The Manchurian Candidate' is how a very creepy and unusual film has been transformed into a straight-faced, slick blockbuster, indistinguishable from many other conspiracy thrillers. Demme's tricksy, cluttered direction is annoying, as are his endless point-of-view shots(which worked well in the confines of 'Silence of the Lambs' but not here).

Demme does get one over on Frankenheimer's film with the well-orchestrated assassination climax, but too often this falls short. And its desperate attempts to make everything seem topical and relevant will ensure it quickly dates while the original continues to shine