Remake has a different emphasis

Rating: 6/10 (8 September 2007)

spoilers
Just got back from the theater, audience was a mixed bag but I did notice a lot of gray haired folks, more than usual, the Western's demographic is definitely in evidence.
Over all first impression I'd say that this film was a 8/10, I liked it, it amped up the volume on the action from the original version emphasized different parts of the story while neglecting some others. Its definitely an improvement over the dialog driven TV Westerns of late.
But it did have a few faults which I'll enumerate later.
It starts out in the ranch house introducing the Evan's family, and this version has Evans with wooden leg which he lost in the Civil War.
The whole beginning stage coach hold up was very SW in feel and the action sequences during this were well done and exciting. Wade seeing the coach, despite the heavy attack upon it, beginning to pull away from his crew drives the Evans cattle herd into the road (like in the Original version) to stop it. Ben Foster as the creepy cold blooded gunslinger Charlie Prince dispatches the wounded.
The gang rides into Bisbee with their loot. Charlie Prince tells the sheriff about the hold up in the canyon and meets up in the with rest of the gang in the Saloon & their they splits their cash. Most then leave for the nearby Mexican Border. Ben Wade stays behind & seduces a willing Emmy Nelson the bar girl. They go upstairs, make & love. The whole sequence of how Dan Evans & the town sheriff capture Wade in the saloon in this version is totally garbled, in the original it was crystal clear.
The Bisbee Sheriff, Butterfield, and Evans plan to take Wade to Contention City pulling a switcheroo (as in the original) at the Evans Ranch. A new twist for the story is having the oldest son of Evans join the party escorting Wade.
The new version spends a lot of time on the trail adding more action that is all pretty good also has an added sequence at the rail camp where a work crew is blasting tunnels for a new rail line.
At Contention the whole sequence of taking Wade from the Hotel to the Station was again amped up by the device of having Charlie Prince offer the town folk a bounty on the sheriffs posse (believable?, no) but the result is a grand shootout as Evans & Wade make a run for the station.
The actual 3:10 coming into Contention was anti-climatic in this version.
Over all the town sets and costuming all looked fantastic Flaws: The biggest first, 40% of the movie was missing. I don't remember to much of a score and I sorely miss the hypnotizing Spanish guitar from the original version. That was Wades leitmotif and this was a big mistake, it lent an extra dimension to all Wades dialogs & actions.
A bit PC, remember the original and the smoke filled bar, I don't think I saw anybody smoking, give me a break.
Initial Western Feel. The whole beginning Evans family sequence doesn't evoke "The West". It needed an establishing landscape shot, then the Evans & just a bit more lingering on landscape shots it did have, but the cutaways seemed to come to fast.
Chronologically it pushed the envelope a bit . Evans looked what, 30 - 35 tops, he's supposed to have lost his leg during the Civil War, so he would have had to been young, 17, and the year 1864 at the time to make him 35 + by mid 1880's (when the Southern Pacific was running) its a minor quibble. They could just as easily have said he lost it in the Indian Wars.
The story line got garbled, it was crisp & clear and humorous (the bit with the town drunk) in the original version how Wade got captured this version fowled this up. I still think Ford & Farr did a better job with their sequence.
Both versions still suffer from the endings neither is all that satisfying or believable but this new version has much more action. I would have thought though (from the prowess displayed by the marksman on Wades gang during the stagecoach holdup) that he would have easily snipered out Evans on his break for the station with Wade. It would have been better to do the break for the station the way it was done in "Last Train From Gun Hill" , ie. Evans holding a scatter gun under Wades chin.
It needed more train shots too, but thats me.