Jacob's Ladder

It's going to be hard to top the horror classic and I'm not surprised. Was hoping to be at least mediocre the way many copy-paste-randomize movies are being coughed up these days but went far below expectations. The very things that made the original so scary, dream-like and shocking is simply not there.

Let's get this out of the way first; the original Jacob's Ladder is a great and unique film that by no means needs an updated version. If you want to watch a great version of it, just go watch the original.

Story: While it is a remake, it is not a shot for shot reiteration. Several key story elements have been changed up, but many of the scenes reappear in a different context. The problem with this is that some of them feel shoved in to pay fan service to the original. The changes to the story and characters are at times major, and it feels like they are trying to tell a similar story just with vastly different parameters and it doesn't quite fit right.

Acting: The three main actors do a very serviceable job in their respected roles, however Michael Ealy really wasn't able to fully capture the same insane paranoia that Tim Robbins brought.

Production: The cinematography, while not bad, was lacking creativity and polish. The sound design was solid throughout. The effects on the other hand were cheesy and repetitious. They drastically overused the sped up head and camera shaking effect, while the cgi would have looked like it was 10 years old, 10 years ago. Seriously, half-assed practical effects would have looked much better than this shoddy cgi.

Entertainment: Well, there was little. It honestly felt like one of the most generic and predictable films that I have seen in a long time. I understand that it's difficult to make a remake unique, but this iteration has no heart, enjoyment, or identity to it at all and it just falls flat.

Overall: It's not the worst movie that you could watch, but there's really no reason to watch it. It's bland, mediocre, and the only thing scary about it are the bad special effects. Like I said before, if you want to watch a great version of it, just go watch the original. A generous 4/10

I feel sorry for the filmmakers here. The original is such a classic, and so we'll acted; it achieves very singular levels of story, atmosphere, and performance. The remake was always doomed to pale in comparison. That said, I was willing to give it a shot and judge it on its own merits. What I found was a story devoid of character enriching beats and a tired visual style that was at its best when it tried, however infrequently, to approximate the original. I never once felt drawn in to the muddied predicament of the characters and in fact became increasingly annoyed with the plots tendency to drift away from the core mystery in favor of tired paranoia driven conspiracy tropes where no one is who you thought they were and the protagonist's family, friends, and lovers are out to get them. The denounment is pure laziness. I had to rewatch the original the next day to cleanse my pallet.

Someone seriously thought it would be a good idea to take Jacob's Ladder, a classic take on life and death, and turn it into a second-rate thriller with none of the profundity and existential dread of the earlier movie? Was there nobody to say that's a dumb idea, the script is abysmal, you're fired? I approached this with an open mind, I love the original but I thought a remake might be interesting. It wasn't. It was unimaginative and uninspired garbage. Do yourself a huge favor, go watch the earlier version and avoid this one like the plague.

A pale, hollow mockery of the original and a criminal waste of actors' talent. The original was designed to be a modern day interpretation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead with influences from a 19th century short story (An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge), the artwork and photography of Francis Bacon & Joel Peter Witkin, along with philosophical and biblical references and imagery. The remake, on the other hand, is a dumpster fire of a bad PSA masquerading as a movie. The only credit I can give is to the main cast members who do their utmost to at least lift the film experience out of the realms of the unwatchable with some solid performances.

Updated 2022: I recently made an attempt to rewatch this film, on the off chance that perhaps my love of the original was clouding my judgement, and I have to be completely honest and say not only does my original rating and review still stand, but if anything I am even more disappointed in what this remake delivered. I will also reiterate that I do still think this film wasted the talents of the actors involved, and that the performances given were the only thing about this film that just managed to raise it from the quagmire of completely unwatchable (the cast here is definitely not the issue). Having also recently begun to dive further into a self study of topics such as film theory and film appreciation there is one thing I have realised, and that is I do tend to reserve my harshest criticism for those movies I believe had the potential to be far better than the half baked garbage they ultimately delivered to audiences; Jacob's Ladder (2019) falls squarely into that category of films for me. I don't believe there were too many fans of the original film, including myself who expected a scene for scene, beat for beat, carbon copy reshoot of the 90s version, but the fact that not only did the filmmakers here appear to have completely missed the very core element of the original film (one's ultimate acceptance of death, and the journey of 'letting go' that the dying brain/soul must go through in order to reach that state of acceptance), but that in doing so they also missed a myriad of emotionally powerful and socially relevant stories they could've told instead is deeply disappointing to me.