Cronenberg's darker reimagining of the 1958 original is a worthy remake, but I personally still preferred the original

Rating: 6/10 (15 December 2014)

Whether you like this film or not, I think that Cronenberg deserves some acknowledgement for putting his own stamp on this remake. This isn't a rehash of the original. In fact many elements are different and ultimately how much you appreciate this film will depend on 2 things; 1) Whether you've seen the original film and 2) If you preferred the minor alterations that Cronenberg made to the original film. The problem for me is that many of the changes that Cronenberg made to this film weakened it as a whole in my opinion for the following reasons;
In the original film, our scientist was a family man who had a loving wife and child. He was a likable guy, as was his wife and even the kid had a certain charm about him. The other thing that I really liked about the original is the way it was played out as a mystery film - it kept you hooked in and was engaging and interesting throughout its running time. When watching the original you were constantly left in a state of wonder.
Then we come to Cronenberg's remake.....
The big problem that I had with this film is that the whole film had a sleazy mean-spirited feel about it. Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) was a sleazy guy who just didn't seem to care about anyone but himself - his misogynistic attitude towards women coupled with his psychotic behaviour didn't help either. It really made me indifferent to his character. I suppose part of his erratic behaviour could have been attributed to his accident, but to be honest I took a disliking to his character pretty much from the start. The relationship between Seth and journalist Veronica wasn't explored particularly well - in fact all I saw her as was a f*** buddy. The chemistry between the two wasn't great and to me the whole film felt heartless and cold.
Another issue I had with this film is that Cronenberg seemed more interested in shocking and scaring his audience than in making us care for his characters or to be involved in his story. I also felt at times that Cronenberg went too far - did we really need to see a baboon get fried from the inside out? It's interesting that the film has the tagline 'Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid' but was it really that scary? You may get one or two cheap jump scares from the excessive gore on show, but this isn't what I'd categorise as scary - I much prefer psychological horror.
One thing I did like about this remake is that it does make more of an attempt to explore the psychological aspect of Seth's condition, there are also one or two nice scenes between Seth and Veronica. As I mentioned above, Cronenberg deserves credit for making this film his own and I'll admit that it is reasonably good and I'll also admit that I was never bored when watching this film.
Ultimately, this is all about taste; gore hounds will love this film and will lap up Cronenberg darker and much more disturbing remake. As for me, I enjoyed this film, but the suspense & mystery of the original will always make it a much more satisfying film in my opinion.