Carrie

Carrie as an AWESOME movie. It's an amazing of relatable teenager in a completely foreign situation. It has a great sense of adventure in a graspable way, we feel Carrie's journey from awkward high school social pariah to almost normal teenager, and it really feels like an epic journey. When I heard there was going to be a remake, I was SUPER excited. Carrie is a story to me that can be told and retold dozens of times, with so many new ways to tell it. Maybe it's a new time period. Maybe it's a different type of social pariah - example, maybe instead of a religiously overzealous mother, she comes from a politically overzealous one. Maybe that example won't work today, but it could work in another year. There could be far more creative twists then I'm thinking of. In fact, I just had a thought - you can almost see Chronicle as a similar adaptation to the Stephen King Carrie idea. And, in my opinion, that was a brilliant movie.

So was Carrie brilliantly retold? No. Not really. But it wasn't bad. It unfortunately became what I hate in remakes. That's not to say a complete change of the story; I really believe that change is necessary in any remake. No, there was just no interesting change in the story to keep me interested. It was spot on. And, with this being one of the few book adaptations of a book I've actually read, I can honestly say it's CLOSER to the book than the 1976 film. But to adapt a book written in 1974 about a girl struggling through relationships in high school to a 2013 premise should involve more work. Sure, the initial struggle for popularity is there. But we just recently saw in the surprise it 21 Jump Street how high school social hierarchy's, while still existing, are changing depending on the circumstances around the students forming them. I would have been interested to see a change there. But instead, we get the same girl, ostracized for the same reasons.

Chloe Grace Moretz was fascinating in the Carrie role. I've always loved her performances, seamlessly going from child actress to great actress, taking on roles most child actresses wouldn't touch. Granted, most of my bias for her comes from Kick-Ass, but here we see her shine in a completely new role. It was also a bit of an Emma Stone quality in her role too; a girl who we know is physically good looking, but who manages to make a character we believe is average, plain, or even ugly. Watching this movie, I easily believed that Carrie would never be asked to prom, that boys wouldn't find her attractive. It works super well, and I'm super happy with that. Julianne Moore also manages to me a delightfully creepy and uncomfortably spot on overzealous religious nut. She manages to make me feel both upset at Carrie's upbringing and strangely frightened of Carrie's ultimate fate, both at the same time. It works super well.

But again, these great performances simply aren't enough to carry the film to new heights, or even new places. It was successful enough at telling it's story, but for a remake, I want more than "enough". It was clear that the team making this film was probably just a group of diehard Carrie fans, who wanted to put their name on an official remake. So I'll chalk it up to a fun night at the movies. Maybe my rank is a bit unfair. But I don't want any remake to be just "okay".

Rank - 2/5