Wow – what a fucking waste of time, money and cars.

I know – I’m that guy that has enjoyed the hell out of the Platinum Dunes remakes of classics like THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE films and the AMITYVILLE HORROR one.

Now – both of those series – the original versions – are wonderful films that I love. THE HITCHER is no different. I love the original film. I don’t care how fucked up Eric Red may be – I love Rutger Hauer and C Thomas Howell and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

I think the biggest difference here is this. The youngsters they cast in this… are just terrible. Absolutely terrible. And Sean Bean… well, he’s as good as Sean Bean can be, but Sean Bean may try to be psychotic… but Rutger Hauer really is psychotic. There’s something broken in Rutger’s brain that’s reflected in those “give a fuck” eyes of his that just tells you… DON’T FUCK WITH HIM.

Sean Bean, well – he’s no nonsense. But I can’t imagine him butt-fucking anyone – or masturbating to a photo then using the cum to stick it to the wall alongside his other conquests… In otherwords, Sean Bean doesn’t have the crazy baggage that comes with Rutger Hauer, simply because he made those early Dutch films with Verhoeven. And in the original film… it was that unhinged crazy fucking actor background that Hauer lent to the character of John Ryder.

Then there’s the factoid that they drained 100% of the character out of the “kid in the car” character. C Thomas Howell was a bright eyed – wimpy – nerdy kid that just wanted company to keep him up. He wasn’t some chiseled buff boy. He certainly didn’t have a girlfriend. Hell, one would have to strain to think that C Thomas Howell had ever sprouted a hair in the valley of nuts. He was a boy driving cross-country on his very first adventure. And Rutger Hauer was the big bad wolf on his Goldilocks ass. He was gonna make the boy, nut up and be a man.

That dynamic is totally gone. Now they have Ken and Barbie out for their Spring Break vacation. There’s nothing significant. They’re not good Samaritans. They’re cautious cynical kids of today. Not wide-eyed, not ready for adventure and the world ahead of them. They’re just as well developed as the characters in FRIDAY THE 13TH movies.

This bugs the shit out of me.

Now I know. C Thomas Howell has never been accused of being a great actor – but in THE HITCHER, he had a great character that he fit perfectly. And by the end of that original film, there was something awesome about the hell that Rutger put Howell through. And there was something almost mystical and mythical about the relationship between the two of them.

None of that is here. There’s no Homoeroticism. There’s no real tension. There are some awesome car stunts – and a couple of great gore moments. And the film is real pretty.

With THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE remake – I said it was like the Hollywood Version of the reality that was Tobe Hooper’s classic original. Here, the original HITCHER was 100% Hollywood fare. It was the Hollywood take on Spielberg’s DUEL. And it was absolutely perfectly cast and played. This film is the definition of a pointless remake.

It feels utterly pointless. The female switch is weak. It isn’t like they built her character to be a submissive mousy girl that had to become a strong-willed powerful woman that was forced to grow up and stop hiding behind her man, which she was using as her shield from reality – to be her own person. That’s not the case here. There’s not really a transformation of any kind. By anyone anywhere in the film. The fucked up beauty of the original was that C Thomas had gone all the way from innocence – to possibly being A WOLF. You could believe that Howell would become what Hauer was. Utterly psychotic.

Here – you just get the idea that possibly the girl might spend some time crying in a pillow.

Oh – and there’s very possibly the lamest shower love scene in history in this film. Completely posed. Absolutely PG NICK AT NITE. TERRIBLE.

Oh – and there’s all these cute BIRDS references – as if they’re reminding us… or threatening us… “We’re gonna do THE BIRDS next, ready or not!” That was real annoying.

If I may. Go buy the DVD for the original HITCHER this weekend instead of seeing this. It’s a vastly better film.