The original is in general better

Rating: 7/10 (30 September 2007)

I guess you can't complain too much that they remade 3:10 to Yuma. After all, the original is a pretty shameless rip-off of High Noon. As much as a rip-off as it is, though, I thought it was better than High Noon. And, while Delmer Daves' original is fantastic, it's not like it's perfect or anything. It can be improved upon, I suppose. Unfortunately, James Mangold's remake doesn't improve upon it, except for maybe one bit, which I'll get to in a minute. The remake adds over 20 minutes, but it doesn't bother to flesh out the characters. In fact, the roles are flatter here than they were in the original. The extra plot points are unnecessary. They should especially have excised an entire sequence in which Luke Wilson makes a cameo. Not only does that sequence have the distracting, "Hey, look! That's Luke Wilson" factor, it just doesn't add anything. It has been a while since I've seen the original, but, as I recall, it was pretty close to a real-time thriller, with Dan Evans guarding Ben Wade until the 3:10 arrives for most of the film. This is only a short portion of the new one. It is the best portion, though. It doesn't solve the problems of the original, although I don't personally consider the characters' actions too problematic in either version, as many people do. The reason that the remake might be worth seeing is the ending. It's quite a bit different than the original (unless I'm misremembering), and it brings the story to a higher level than the original achieved. As for the acting, it's mostly passable. But again it pales in comparison to the original. Both Van Heflin and Glenn Ford have some great movies and performances to their names, but I think 3:10 to Yuma was the peak of both their careers. I'm not a huge fan of either Christian Bale or Russell Crowe, but they've both done better. Crowe is great in that final sequence, however. As for the other actors, most are not worth remembering. I did really like the kid who played Dan Evans' son, Logan Lerman. Watch for him in the future. And Ben Foster can add his name to the list of the classic superbad henchman characters in Westerns. He was wonderfully evil. I probably sounded like I didn't like the film much. That's not true. It's just that it's not as good as its predecessor, which, to me, means it doesn't have much reason to exist.