Don't Eat the Snow in Hawaii
To my knowledge, I've never really had a genuine, honest-to-gosh nemesis, but I'm beginning to think it just might be Matthew McConaughey. Yes, that Matthew McConaughey, the naked-bongo-playing goodtime-funboy with the perfect six-pack abs and the spotty box-office record.
And why, you may ask, would I elevate this inoffensively goofy would-be movie star to the level of "nemesis"? Well, first, he brought his special kind of blandness to Dirk Pitt, the literary swashbuckler whose adventures I devoured as a youth. Now, according to ScreenRant.com, he may be in line to transform another of my puberty-era heroes into one of his signature sleepy-eyed slacker doofuses (doofi?): Thomas Magnum, a.k.a. Magnum, P.I., the Ferrari-driving, Hawaii-based TV detective played in the 1980s by Tom Selleck.
Sigh.
It's not that I hate the guy or anything -- the mere sight of his face doesn't make me want to strangle him, not like, say, Adam Sandler. Indeed, he seems like he'd probably be an okay guy to have sitting on the barstool next to you on a Friday afternoon at your favorite beer tavern. But as an actor, as a movie star, I just don't understand why people like Matthew McConaughey. He's got a pretty body and a face best described as "cute," but no charisma, no spark, no "It." At least not in my opinion. I find him utterly boring, to be honest.
As to this specific role, Magnum is a better fit for him than Dirk Pitt was, but still not a good fit. He can easily handle the beach-bum aspect of the character, but the thing that no one seems to remember about Magnum is that he could be a right bastard when he had to be, especially in the episodes that had anything to do with his Vietnam experiences or the unfinished business thereof, and I just can't see McConaughey being able to pull off the cold-blooded stuff. He's too much of a lightweight. His portrayal of Dirk Pitt suffered from the same problem; he's just not credible as a guy who's supposed to be made of tempered steel underneath the tan.
Of course, it's entirely possible that a big-screen Magnum remake will be played for laughs, as so many other TV-to-movie projects have been, obviating the need for McConaughey to be convincingly tough. I'm sure any of my long-time readers can guess where I stand on that idea.
In case you're wondering about the title of this entry, "Don't Eat the Snow in Hawaii" was the title of the original Magnum P.I. pilot movie. However, in this context, when we're faced with the possibilities both of Matthew "Mc-Bora-hey" trying to fill Tom Selleck's Top-Siders and of a spoof Magnum rather than a respectful updating, well, then the title takes on a somewhat different connotation. Because the snow in this case has a distinctly yellowish tinge, if you take my meaning.
As long as I'm all revved up anyhow, and at great risk of sounding like a whiny old poop, when is this trend of remaking every damn thing going to end anyhow? I'm getting really tired of all the stuff I loved as a kid being "reimagined" into pale imitations of their former selves. The one saving grace of these exercises in branding -- because that's what remakes really are as far as the studio suits are concerned, just familiar and exploitable names rather than ideas that really need to be updated -- is that they seem to magically fade from memory as you're walking out of the theater, so it's not like they displace the originals. They're as insubstantial and ultimately harmless as soap bubbles. But still, it's annoying to think that somebody out there thinks that stuff like old Magnum episodes -- which are readily available on DVD -- aren't good enough for modern audiences.
Look, I love Hollywood. I love Hollywood movies. I used to get angry with the snobs who decreed that nothing that came from a big studio could possibly be as good or as original as some impenetrable Hungarian cinema-verite bauble about unemployed fisherman who sit in darkened rooms and smoke all day long. But these days I'm beginning to wonder if maybe those film-school types had a point about Hollywood being out of ideas. I mean, come on... a big-screen version of every television show ever? A remake of frickin' Bill and Ted, for god's sake? Yeah, that movie is a little dated now, but what possible reason is there for going back to it, other than the crass belief that people will go see anything that has a familiar-sounding title?
Comments
I second your re-making rant, Jason. I actually liked Sahara, in my usually shallow movies as pure entertainment kind of way, and McConaughey did nothing to spoil it for me, but I guess I do not have the background of being familiar with Dirk Pitt...
Posted by: Ilya Burlak | April 5, 2008 3:27 AM
To be fair, Ilya, I know a lot of people who liked Sahara and who am I to question the tastes of others, given how questionable my own frequently are? :)
I just grew up reading the novels, and like a lot of people who have a long history with literary characters, have a very strong idea in my mind of who and what Dirk Pitt is all about. And McConaughey ain't it. And the movie itself just didn't capture the same tone as the book. C'est la vie...
Posted by: jason | April 5, 2008 8:57 AM
Interesting that Tom Selleck didn't take the part. If I'm the producer, I sit him down in a room, tell him it's an action movie, he's not that old, and if he thinks he'll look/feel ridiculous playing a 30-year old part at his current age, I'd have just two words for him: Harrison Ford.
Wimp...
Posted by: Brian Greenberg | April 5, 2008 9:25 PM
I had a bright idea of looking up your review of Miami Vice (you know, a remake of the type of Magnum). I did not like it at all (in addition to all the faults that you mention, it managed to simply bore me), and I was extrapolating that we might agree on that one. Alas, no :(
Posted by: Ilya Burlak | April 6, 2008 11:30 AM
Brian, my guess is that Selleck probably wasn't approached. That's the thing with a lot of these remake/adaptations: the producers of them are trying to tap into a younger demographic, to reinvent them for "a whole new generation, and who gives a damn about the older folks who don't go to the movies much anyway because they supposedly have better things to do with their money." Which means a 50-60-something actor simply doesn't get considered, because the target audience doesn't want to see "old people." Or so the studio suits believe.
I think Indy IV got made because Harrison, George, and Steve wanted to do it, and because Indy/Harrison is a rare character that seems to have cross-generational appeal, and not because of the usual behind-the-scenes thinking that goes into these remake/update/reimagining deals.
It's too bad, too, because (as The Girlfriend was saying the other night) it could be really interesting to catch up with a character like Magnum after 20 years and see how he's matured (or failed to mature), assuming of course an intelligent script.
(A brief aside: Have you seen any of the Jesse Stone TV-movies that Selleck has been doing lately? I quite like those; I think they prove he still has the chops for a detective/police-type story, even if he's not doing quite as much physical action as he did 30 years back...)
Ilya: I think my reaction to the Miami Vice movie was (a) not quite so positive as my review apparently made it sound, and (b) based almost entirely on how much the of the TV series the movie managed to retain (quite a bit more than I expected, so I was pleasantly surprised and preoccupied by that aspect of the film, as opposed to other concerns). It is perhaps indicative of my true opinion that I haven't bothered to see the movie a second time, and I have no inclination to add it to the DVD collection.
Posted by: jason | April 6, 2008 7:42 PM
The horrendous trend of remakes is one reason why I don't go out to movies much any more. I already saw the better version so I'll just wait for it show up on TV.
I also refused to see Sahara because of who they cast as Dirk. I like McConaughey just fine, but in no way is this guy Dirk Pitt and I'm not going to see such a bastardization of something it would have been so easy to correctly cast.
Whatever... Hollywood has clearly gone around the bend and it doesn't seem to be coming back any time soon.
Posted by: Ann Vallier | April 7, 2008 3:09 PM