CRITIQUE CONTAINS SPOILERS The original 1952 film was about a group of crooks, posing as musicians, who rented a room and an old lady's house in London. She was unwittingly drawn into their plans to steal a large sum of money. The old lady was portrayed by Katie Johnson as a vulnerable woman who, nonetheless, was saved from being implicated in the plot and rose above it.
The remake takes the central story, transfers it to the United States, and makes the old lady anything other than vulnerable. That being the case, the outcome of this film is always clear. She is not and never will get drawn into the plot of the gangsters living in her midst, unwittingly or otherwise. Also seen in the remake is the old lady routinely attacking her lodgers, something only fleetingly glanced at in the original.
When old, classic films are remade the authors should bear in mind what makes them special and try to keep it. In The Ladykillers (2004) this was lost. The studio thus served up another film which didn't benefit the world of cinema one iota.
The remake takes the central story, transfers it to the United States, and makes the old lady anything other than vulnerable. That being the case, the outcome of this film is always clear. She is not and never will get drawn into the plot of the gangsters living in her midst, unwittingly or otherwise. Also seen in the remake is the old lady routinely attacking her lodgers, something only fleetingly glanced at in the original.
When old, classic films are remade the authors should bear in mind what makes them special and try to keep it. In The Ladykillers (2004) this was lost. The studio thus served up another film which didn't benefit the world of cinema one iota.