Poorly done remake

Rating: 1/10 (20 January 2006)

Spielberg's film "Munich" is a remake of the 1986 film "Sword of Gideon" starring Michael York and Rod Steiger. The true story of the terrorist incident at the 1972 Olympics and the Israeli response. This film is grittier and more graphic than the original, though many scenes are taken verbatim from it.
One problem I have is the title. Kind of like "JFK" which wasn't really about JFK, "Munich" isn't about Munich. It does recreate the original incident, but better to see the 1999 documentary "One Day in September". The final scene with the World Trade Center photoshopped into the scene was effective, but the point that was to be made was too nebulus. What is it exactly Spielberg is trying to say there? Again if you see "Sword of Gideon" much of "Munich" is redundant, and in a sense a rip-off, especially as it isn't being marketed as a remake, trying to sweep that under the rug. The good points are the realism of the camera-work. I think Spielberg reaches too far by taken incidents and trying to extend them into universal themes. Schindler's list was not the quintessential Holocaust film as some believe, it was a specific story (War and Remembrance would be the quintessential one). And likewise this is so far from a quintessential film on terrorism, but it wants to be.