It’s a shame the second half of the movie had all that ‘elevator through the center of the planet’ nonsense. It started out really fun.
So a movie based on a book, that decided to completely ignore the actual book and just borrows a few aspects of it? No thanks. Although it sounds that the first half was entertaining in it’s own way. Maybe it makes for a fine popcorn movie for people who don’t actually know what the plot is ‘supposed’ to be.
I mean, that’s a totally fair take. It definitely is an unnecessary remake that doesn’t add anything to the original. And it is just a popcorn action movie (especially the second half).
But I’d argue a movie is still capable of being good even if it ignores most of its source material. Blade Runner would be a perfect example of this. It has very little to do with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. And it has nothing to do with the novel named Blade Runner.
Honestly, I think Philip K. Dick’s books are the best candidates for making loose interpretations of the source material. He had brilliant ideas and settings but I don’t think he was very good at coming up with a story within those settings. I guess that’s just my personal opinion though. I’ve read various PKD books but I haven’t read all the original stories that were later turned into movies. I haven’t read Paycheck or Minority Report, for example. So maybe my opinion is tainted by the books I did read.
