I suppose it is about time that all of those classic 90’s action movies started to get remade. Honestly, I don’t think we appreciated these films enough in their day. They seemed almost quaint next to the hyper-violent macho men leads of the 80s. I mean…Nicolas Cage was a PREMIER action star in the 90s, I love the Cage-meister but he’s no Stallone or Scwarze…don’t feel like spellchecking, you know who I mean. It looks like the action classic, which gave us our first real look at the lunacy/genius lying under the surface with Cage, is on the remake line. Of course, I’m talking about John Woo’s 1997 film Face/Off.
The remake, which we first posted about a year and a half ago, seems to be moving forward and will be written and directed by Adam Wingard, who just finished the upcoming blockbuster Godzilla Vs Kong. I’m completely split on this. On one hand, it is a stellar premise. An FBI Agent gets a face transplant from a crime lord to infiltrate his organization, however the crime lord wakes from his chemically induced coma and forces the surgeons to give him the FBI Agents face…you know, that old chestnut. A remake is also somewhat timely, since the first real-world successful face transplant occurred just weeks ago.
On the other hand, I think we can all agree that it was not the premise that caused this film to land, but the lightning in a bottle of getting two of Hollywood’s most out-there A-Listers together on screen under the direction of John Woo who seemed content to just let them chew the ever living hell out of every scene they were in. Without Travolta’s ultra-creepy “Daddy’s got a brand new bag” speech to his daughter, of Cage’s delivery of the line “We’re going to take his face………off” you’re left with an action-packed but forgettable film along the lines of Virtuosity or Soldier.
Wingard will be joined in writing duties by Simon Barrett with Neal Moritz’s producing and Paramount backing the project.
