10 years later Michael Haneke, for whatever reason (money? lack of ideas?), decided to shoot an American version of his classic. The result: "Funny Games U.S.", an utterly unnecessary shot-for-shot remake, now set in America with American actors.
The film may work if you have never seen the original, but totally doesn't work when you already seen the original a couple of times (just like me). It's the same movie with the same characters, the same dialogue (now in English), the same long shots and similar-looking settings.
During the entire movie I was hoping for something new: a different plot twist, new dialogue lines, different character responses etc. - unfortunately nothing new happened :-/
The cast is great (Naomi Watts, Tim Roth) and the acting is good, but sadly no-one here is able to deliver a performance as strong, powerful and emotional as the cast from the original did. Furthermore, the absence of surprises disappointed me and after the first half hour I was almost bored to death, despite the beautiful cinematography and Haneke's tight direction.
Of course, far from being as bad as Gus van Sant's stupid shot-for-shot re-crap of "Psycho", but definitely as pointless and redundant. Stick to the original.
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