Five 90s Movies That Deserve A Remake

The trailer for the sequel/remake/reboot/whatever of Jumanji dropped today, and it's definitely... not what I expected, and probably not I wanted. I say that as a fan of the original with Robin Williams. It just seems hollow. They're messing with a mythos that doesn't need messing with. They could have easily done a sequel that explored the magic and history and origins of the game, but this feels like way too much overthinking went on. Or perhaps way too much underthinking went on. I don't want to judge a movie six months before it comes out, but not a lot makes me want to see it.

But we as audiences either have to collectively stop going to remakes to prove a point that we don't want them, or we need to accept them as a given, and try to get them to remake some lesser films that deserve a second shot. They were great in concept, but kinda missed the mark in execution.

1 - Spawn

I'm going to go ahead and break the guideline of "missed the mark in execution" with Spawn. Because when this came out in 1997, it was pretty awesome. But let's face it, Spawn has aged horribly. What I completely enjoyed when I was 12 (thanks mom for not really checking what movies I picked out at Blockbuster!), I revisited last year and was shocked by how much it doesn't hold up. The time is right for Spawn to come back, especially with the success of recent Rated R superhero films, and the darker tone Marvel's Netflix shows take. I think fresh eyes on this would give us a solid movie.

2 - Timecop

I'm not going to trash Jean Claude Van Damme, but I won't defend him either. He did what he did, made the movies he did, and was very effective at making rather high concept action B-movies. With genre films being really in vogue, we could crank the concept up even higher and really get into the intricacies of time travel with this, explore the possible paradoxes. You could get someone a current or ex-Game of Thrones star in for some name recognition, like Kit Harrington or Richard Madden.

3 - Virtuosity

The original starred Denzel Washington as a cop who had to track down and eliminate a virtual reality composition of the worst-of-the-worst serial killers who had escaped into the real world, played by Russell Crowe. High concept with two great actors, but it was just unbelievably bad. Go in, polish up the script a bit, make it tighter, make it a script fitting of the concept, and it could be a great parable of the reliance on technology, the tech renaissance we're in right now, especially with VR tech coming into its own. Ryan Gosling would crush it in the Russell Crowe role. I'd like to see him in villain mode.

4 - Cool World

If you approach this concept from the right angle, it could be excellent. Like an artist's descent into madness, similar to Adaptation with Nic Cage. This was little seen in its day, and barely talked about ever now (except in a blog like this) about a cartoonist whose sexy female animation comes to animated-life to seduce him so she can cross into the real world. It was like a weird attempt to stand on the shoulders of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, but make it for adults. Gabriel Byrne was the cartoonist, and a very young Brad Pitt was a detective, Kim Basinger was the sexy cartoon. Pitt has the ability and talent to play the cartoonist at this point in the career, and I think it would be interesting to see him revisit that story in a different role, and then dive into the psychosis of it all. And the technology is certainly there to merge the live action and animated worlds.

5 - Seaquest DSV

Or Seaquest 2032, whatever you're comfortable calling it. I've heard it both ways. I loved this show as a kid, but it was in the 90s when they weren't quite sure what to do with genre shows, so there was always this air of cheesiness and camp surrounding it. Especially in later seasons when they tried to make it weird to be more like Star Trek or The X-Files. A remake as either a show or a film franchise would be awesome. Exploring the wonders of the ocean in ways that we can only begin to imagine.

BONUS: Speaking of 90s sci-fi television, let's get a remake of Sliders, too.