Book v. Movie: Best & Worst YA Adaptations: Best: Bridge to Terabithia

I hate this film with a passion I reserve for few. It's even worse than Lurhman's other films, which brings it to a considerable degree of crapitudeism.

 

I saw this freshman year in high school; it appealed on a base level with "cool" gunplay and a few neat visuals, but even then I couldn't much stomach the silliness of the whole endeavor and the cheesiness of the presentation. Just a total cornball "modernization" of a classic. I've never had any time for Luhrmann, and this is among the reasons why.

 

"She's the Man" (2006)

"Based on Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, She's The Man is the story of a high school gal who pretends to be her own brother to play for a soccer team, only to fall for a fellow player ? and have a female student fall for her. It sticks closely to the original, only instead of sharp wordplay and fairytale romance you get cringe-inducing gender gags and cardboard characters. Probably the worst Shakespeare update ever, until they get around to Zac Efron's Hamlet (you know they will)."

And it'll be a musical.

 

On the bright side, he'll die at the end.

 

I know the guy that directed this film. His name is Andy Fickman and he's from Houston. He's a very funny guy in person and quite possibly the shortest film director in Hollywood, a town full of very short directors. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) Fortunately for Andy, he's gone on to movies that were much more successful, though not necessarily artistic triumphs. He's a comedy guy. Actors love him because they keep him laughing, usually by ridiculing the culture of Hollywood.

I'm sure he did this to get a credit.

His next movie is with Billy Crystal.

 

Movies that mangled the classics

"Clueless"

"Like, this is a totally classic update on Jane Austen's Emma, though unfortunately responsible for helping bring, like, Valleyspeak to our shores. But we can forgive its mutilation of our fair language, because Clueless is an inventive update, plonking Austen's dithering, matchmaking heroine in a high school. Which, as a highly exclusive society with its own codes and etiquette, isn't all that dissimilar to Austen's own world. Except with miniskirts, gorgeous gay guys, and liposuction deaths."

Actually, I don't think this is a mangling; it's an extremely clever updating.

 

Movies that mangled the classics

Around The World In 80 Days (2004)

"A masterclass in manglement, Around The World In 80 Days takes Phileas Fogg ? the debonair, Bond-like gentleman of the novel ? and turns him into a wacky inventor. Then, because it's basically an action-comedy vehicle for Jackie Chan, it shifts the focus entirely onto Fogg's sidekick, here transformed into a kind of living cartoon character. Add silly contraptions and phoned-in cameos from the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and you have the reason why Steve Coogan's Hollywood career is as moribund as Partridge."

The original with David Niven was no hell, either.

 

I caught this by accident on TV during Christmas holidays - my initial amusement promptly changed into cringing disgust. I can't really say which cameo was more facepalm worthy - Ahnuld's or Richard Branson's... Needless to say, I didn't finish watching the film.

 

10 Things I Hate About You (1999)

"The only people who find Shakespeare's comedies funny are English teachers who, during school theatre trips, make a point of laughing too loudly at each fossilised gag. 10 Things I Hate About You ups the amusement value of Taming of the Shrew by shoving it into a school setting and making it less massively sexist. It's also got Heath Ledger singing Can't Take My Eyes Off You, which is better than any Elizabethan lute music we've ever heard (and we've heard it all)."

Saw some of this. Didn't work.

 

HAHAHA **** YOU! Much Ado About Nothing is desperately hilarious and not a bit fosselized, particularly in Branagh's film version. Also, I am seriously questioning this reviewer's assertion that he's heard a lot of Elizabethean Lute music. What an ass. Seriously, why am I going to take your advice about which movies are good when you've just backhandedly thrown out Shakespeare's contribution to the Western Canon? Again, what an ass.

 

Taming of the Shrew was brilliant, probably my favorite Shakespeare comedy. And it isn't sexist in my mind, just subtle. I still laugh thinking about when the real Vincentio shows up in Padua to find Tranio pretending to be Lucentio. Classic.

 

I'm not usually big on Shakespeare's comedies, but Zeffireli's Burton/Taylor version of The Taming of the Shrew is very good.

10 Things, not so much.

 

I like the "Kiss Me Kate" version better, actually. Maybe that's on the list?

 

Phantom Of The Paradise (1974)

"A deranged retelling of Gaston Leroux's Phantom of the Opera, Phantom Of The Paradise is the story of a hideously disfigured rock musician on a vendetta against an evil record producer. It's a glittering, genre-mashing rock musical which makes the average viewer feel like they're riding the dodgems inside Ziggy Stardust's skull. We're not sure if it's rubbish or genius, but it does do more damage to the source material than Andrew Lloyd Webber ever could."

 

There a lot of adaptations of Phantom of the Opera, I think at least 10 movies since the great silent version of 1925 and of course the below-par musical adaptation of the stage show version of the novel (which actually is one of the more faithful adaptations).
There a few pretty dodgy versions to say the least and more still that stray from the original story.

The novel itself though, although these days listed as a classic, is not exactly a masterpiece of literature. It is never clear whether Leroux intended it to be a horror, romance or mystery/thriller so it ends up trying to be all those things and goes a little wayward. Although I think some problems with the novel lie in the translation, perhaps the original French version works far better.

 

Movies that mangled the classics

Whatever It Takes (2000)

"Even people who've never read the original play, or seen the Gerard Depardieu film, or visited the planet Earth know that Cyrano de Bergerac has a big nose. It's why he lacks the courage to woo the woman of his dreams. But you can't have big conks in trendy teen flicks, apparently, so the Cyrano character in Whatever It Takes is a peachy-faced hunk who just happens to be a bit of a nerd. The original was a tragedy ? this is a plain old travesty."

 

O (2001)

"Othello is one of Shakespeare's darkest tragedies, telling of a black general who's whipped into a jealous, murderous fury by his apparent friend, Iago. In O, the army is replaced with a school basketball team, which does diminish the gravitas a tad. But credit where it's due, this does retain the bleakness and bloodlust of the play, with the Othello stand-in Odin James (OJ, geddit?) strangling his girlfriend before shooting himself in the chest. See, jocks have feelings too."

 

Movies that mangled the classics

Scrooged (1988)

"Who better to play a modern-day Scrooge than rent-a-grouch Bill Murray? He's at his drawling, eye-rolling best in Scrooged, which sets the Dickens classic in a world of slimy TV execs and suffering tramps. Gleefully re-inventing everything (the Ghost of Christmas Present is a psychotic fairy), it's an example of how to mangle something but in a good way. Just switch it off before the terribly cheery singalong at the end. Bah humbug!"

 

Now see Roxanne was a mangling of a sort of Cyrano, but it was an absolutely inspired one. Great comedy.

 

"It's that time of year again, the time of year when a young adult novel first stretches its legs as the feature film it was always meant to be sold to Hollywood as. This time around it's I Am Number Four, a saga of an alien refugee hunted on Earth by the invaders who wiped out his race. We're pretty sure it will do well -- the action looks neat, the actor is hunky and Quinn from Glee is in it -- but that doesn't mean it's any good. Star Alex Pettyfer already appeared in one failed young-adult book adaptation, Stormbreaker, and there are dozens of others out there just like it. Here are some of the best and worst. --Zach Oat "

 

This is even more explicit than most: IAN4 is one of that new breed of James Frey-backed money-makers that was written pretty much just to sell the movie rights.

 

Best: Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

"This adaptation of the first three books in the series makes great use of Jim Carrey as the cartoonishly evil Count Olaf, who attempts to claim the fortunes of his orphaned nieces and nephew by taking on various disguises in order to either kill them or marry them. It's one of Carrey's funniest performances, but he's also a great villain, and the sense of dread and mortal peril is never far off. It's a shame they never got to the rest of the books in the series."

 

It is a shame they didn't continue - The Ersatz Elevator was the best the books, I thought. I actually didn't read the conclusion - I guess I grew out of it by that point, and was put off by The Slippery Slope or whatever it was called.

If the books endure, someone will try again down the line, no doubt.