Papillon (2017)

Year 13, Day 142 - 5/22/21 - Movie #3,847

BEFORE: I'm visiting my parents in Massachusetts this weekend, because it's my father's 80th birthday today.  So my job today is to install printer drivers on his laptop so he can print again, and then also on the Chromebook my sister got them for Zoom calls.  She bought them the printer, too, I'm just the installer, apparently.  But I do what I can, I'm here, and today we'll get this tech install stuff done, then maybe I'll re-watch "Green Book" with my parents and then we'll go out for dinner.  While I'm here, I'm blogging and watching movies after they go to bed, basically working around their schedule, but that's easy because they're old and they go to bed early.  Maybe when I'm 80 years old I'll go to bed early, but I kind of doubt it - I think I'd want to stay up late even more, just to get everything I could out of life. 

Rami Malek carries over from "Bohemian Rhapsody".

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Papillon" (1973) (Movie #236)

THE PLOT: Wrongfully convicted for murder, Henri Charriere forms an unlikely relationship with fellow inmate and quirky convicted counterfeiter Louis Dega in an unlikely attempt to escape from the notorious penal colony on Devil's Island.

AFTER: I've got to keep my remarks a little short tonight, apologies, but I'm running behind. It's after midnight on Saturday and I've got to start watching my Sunday movie on DVD. Thankfully I had both of my weekend movies on DVD, so I could just pack them, as my parents don't get all the premium cable channels, plus obviously they don't have the movies saved on my DVR, though they do get Netflix and Disney through their smart TV.  

Since I'd already seen the old version of "Papillon", with Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman, if felt kind of like there wasn't much point in watching this remake.  How was I to know?  It wasn't as bad as the feeling I got after watching two versions of "Death at a Funeral", but the feeling was still there, what's the point of a remake if you're just going to do the same bits, and add nothing new?  I'm hard-pressed here to find any justification for making this movie all over again, almost exactly the same.

OK, I guess this one had more shower scenes, if you're into that sort of thing in a male prison movie, and they were more explicit about where Louis stored his bankroll, but really, that's about it. Just go watch the original film, it's a classic, and I don't know if this version will ever be considered one. (What was it about Steve McQueen and prison movies?  Was he trying to re-create the magic of "The Great Escape" by being in another one?)

This story just seems so basic to me now, Papillon tries to escape, even though he knows an unsuccessful attempt will get him two years in solitary.  Then when he gets caught, he tries again, even though he knows that a second unsuccessful attempt will get him FIVE years in solitary - it's like he's incapable of learning from his own mistakes or something.  But I guess you've got to risk it to get the biscuit, right?  Finally he's sent to Devil's Island, and nobody can ever escape from there, everyone else there is convinced they've hit the end of the proverbial road, and this is where they're going to live, until they die.  Not Papi though, he tries a third time, with a makeshift raft made out of coconuts in a bag, I think.

Ho-hum, the only thing more boring than a remake with no changes is spending so much screen time with Papillon in solitary confinement, with him being forbidden to talk.  This doesn't exactly make for exciting on-camera drama, sorry.

Also starring Charlie Hunnam (last seen in "The Gentlemen"), Christopher Fairbank (last seen in "Guardians of the Galaxy"), Yorick van Wageningen (last seen in "Blackhat"), Roland Moller (last seen in "Skyscraper"), Tommy Flanagan (last seen in "The Ballad of Lefty Brown"), Eve Hewson (last seen in "This Must Be the Place"), Michael Socha, Brian Vernel (last seen in "Dunkirk"), Ian Beattie, Nicholas Asbury, Nikola Kent, Slavko Sobin (last seen in "The Zookeeper's Wife"), Joel Basman (last seen in "Hanna"), Luka Peros, Petar Cirica, Veronica Quilligan, Louisa Pili (last seen in "The 15:17 to Paris"), Antonio de la Cruz (last seen in "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote"), Andre Flynn, Michael Adams (last seen in "Men In Black: International"), Dragan Micanovic (last seen in "RocknRolla"), Nenad Herakovic, Lorena Andrea, Demetri Goritsas (last seen in "Rocketman"), Poppy Mahendra.

RATING: 5 out of 10 coconuts in a bag