Death at a Funeral (2007)

Hey look, it’s another one of those disaster comedies that I so dislike that I keep watching more of them.

This is of course not the American version with Chris Rock and Tracy Morgan, but strangely enough it is the one with Peter Dinklage, because he’s in both of them playing the same character (with a different name). I haven’t seen the new version and I probably never will, since it’s the same exact movie without the British edge to the humor, which makes it an entirely pointless remake. Also, thanks to that movie you probably know the whole plot already just from the previews. I guess that saves me from writing about it.

It’s really funny though even after the American previews spoiled the majority of the jokes. Just about every character is a total dick in some way or another, and those that aren’t keep getting shoved around like they’re worthless, or in Alan Tudyk’s case they get pumped full of hallucinogens. Alan’s performance was of course my favorite, although it was pretty weird hearing him speak with a faux-British accent. As mentioned up at the top there, everything is always going wrong until the end. There were some moments that just made me cringe and laugh at the same time; I kept having to remind myself that this is a movie, not my life. Nothing to worry about. Just laugh. So I did.

As I’m really not very good at writing reviews of movies themselves, I think I’ll end that right here. Instead I’m going to talk about remakes for a bit. This one had no reason to be remade in the English language whatsoever. I hate Hollywood a bit more for that. However, there has been the recent trend in remaking awesome Swedish films based on their source material, like Let the Right One In (to be Let Me In), and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The former seems to be actually turning out very well, and I’m looking forward to its release. There hasn’t been much development on the latter yet, although interestingly there was rumor a while back that Yo-Landi Vi$$er of the somewhat-underground Die Antwoord was offered the role of Lisbeth. Unfortunately it was later confirmed along with the news that she had declined it. I think she would have been great; she’s got that weird look and intensity that Noomi Rapace put on the screen so well. I guess she didn’t think she could do it justice. Daniel Craig is confirmed as Mikael Blomkvist though, which seems alright to me.

Anyway, there have been some really good remakes in the past, and there will probably be more. It would be nice though if people would start coming up with their own ideas for movies.