Fantastic cast, excellent updating of the original screenplay, and superb handling of mood make this a good movie. See Garden State first, though.
Comment
07/29/04
The Manchurian Candidate (2004)
82
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:195
Fresh:159
Rotten:36
Average Rating:7.2/10
Consensus: While not the classic its predecessor is, this update is well-acted and conjures a chilling resonance.
Theatrical Release:19-11-2004
Synopsis: Jonathan Demme updates the original 1962 John Frankenheimer classic with plenty of new paranoid twists: This time a sinister Halliburton-style corporation is behind the brainwashing of a Gulf War... [More]
Starring: Liev Schreiber, Meryl Streep, Denzel Washington, Jon Voight
Director: Jonathan Demme
Reviews for The Manchurian Candidate
161 - 180 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Demme never captures the clammy paranoia of the original, instead settling for a competent but largely hollow reinvention.
07/29/04
For those of us with fond memories of Frankenheimer's classic, this Candidate can only be a distant also-ran.
07/29/04
Jonathan Demme, updating John Frankenheimer's classic exercise in cold war liberal paranoia, has made a witty, anxious thriller for a new age of political uncertainty.
07/29/04
Top CriticThat rare remake that paves its own way without exploiting or cheapening its predecessor.
07/29/04
It's a strong, brilliantly acted, well-timed drama, working as a companion piece, and not a replacement, to the original.
07/29/04
A startlingly effective return to form for director Jonathan Demme, making his first good movie since The Silence of the Lambs.
07/29/04
Filled with conspiracies, intrigue and the suggestion that modern-day society is purposely designed to drive us a little nuts, The Manchurian Candidate is a paranoid fantasy for our time.
07/29/04
As much as I love Sinatra and Harvey, I'll argue that Washington and Schreiber are more than up to the challenge, while Streep, who says she has never seen the Frankenheimer movie, has to be commended for taking the job at all.
07/29/04
If you ride the paranoiac tide, letting Jonathan Demme's assured direction carry you along, the sardonic humor and anxiety-inducing message work on you.
07/29/04
Washington, Schreiber, Streep and company -- and Demme -- have managed to make all the malevolent machinations seem relevant again.
07/29/04
Like its fabled predecessor, and novelist Richard Condon's 1959 potboiler before that, Jonathan Demme's remake of The Manchurian Candidate refashions an old gag into something cautionary, frightening and far less than far-fetched.
07/29/04
That rarest of remakes: a reworking that puts an interesting new spin on a familiar premise but stands strongly on its own.
07/29/04
I liked it, but I was also a bit disappointed.
07/29/04
Angela Lansbury was right. A remake of John Frankenheimer's brilliant 1962 thriller, The Manchurian Candidate, is a lousy idea.
07/29/04
A gripping and intelligent thriller that has both an immediacy and a timelessness.
07/29/04
The first "Candidate" was scary for what it said was possible; this one is arresting due to its parallels to reality.
07/29/04
A disappointingly poker-faced remake that turns John Frankenheimer's brilliant 1962 satire into a confused, convoluted paranoiac thriller.
07/29/04
Much as Demme did in The Silence of the Lambs, he blends together a class cast, stunning style and freaky-deaky B-movie vibes into a tantalizingly jittery thriller.
07/29/04
Some will see it as a thriller. Others will view it as social satire. Almost all will be entertained.
07/29/04
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