As Hollywood continues to blow itself, while at the same time miracuously raping both itself and the rest of the world for ideas to remake, update and sequelise, we continue to see the self-destruction of an industry on the verge of a mental breakdown. The latest update and remake is Assault on the Precinct 13; Carpenter’s brutal and violent thriller, itself a remake of Howard Hawk’s Rio Bravo Western. Except this time it’s a predictable Disney movie, complete with a happy ending.

Ethan Hawke plays Jake, a Sergeant who fails to make the right decision during a sting operation, and blames himself for the deaths of his colleagues even after being cleared of responsibility. Unable to move on, these days he finds himself behind a desk doing paper work, and leaving the world of undercover work behind.

It’s New Year’s Eve and the station Jake works at is Precinct 13, being closed and shutdown and the staff moved over to Precinct 20. At the same time, a known criminal in the form of Marion Bishop is arrestted by Marcus Duvall (Gabriel Byrne) after killing an undercover officer in a church. Duvall is determined to capture his man, whatever the cost.

Branded a cop killer, Bishop and several other cronies are on their way to jail, but have to make a stop at Prcecinct 13 due to bad weather conditions. Unluckily for them almost immediately upon arrival they are attacked by unknowns, possibly to free Bishop from his current respite.

This film is horrible. If films could be categoriesed as wasting good talent, then this film would certainly but in that list. With leads like Laurence Fisburne, Ethan Hawke, and Gabriel Byrne, you have to defy belief that they ended up in what is hurried exercise in violent action. There’s an attempt at a back story, which is perhaps an invitation to try and add substance, but considering 90% of the film is action, it becomes pretty much irrelevant. There is no drama, even though there is once more the intention to provide it.

Acting wise the cast does a decent enough job, though I found Brian Dennehy hilarious – if ever there was a character to give away an entire plot, it would be him. He walks around shiftly, giving clues the size of a planet as to his intentions, and considering some idiot wrote this scropt, you would think he had worked out that having a character prediciting the events as accurately as he does would be giving the bloody game away and stating the obvious. This of course isn’t the case and we end with a character that states the obvious, but the others around him are written in as being totally oblivious and suspecting nothing. Completely, and utterly ridiculous.

One severe lacking of the remake of the remake is that it lacks any tension, at least for me. There’s no controlling of pace in the film, being either too slow at the start or far too quick later on, revealing surprises without any build and therefore providing nothing in the end but a bland scene. Drea de Matteo looked great, and didn’t do too bad a job of being the stronger female lead, compared to the annoying hysteria of Maria Bello. Even so, Matteo’s character simply lacks the coolness that Laura Zimmer displayed in a similar role in Carpenter’s version.

There is an immense amount of action and violence through out, it isn’t quite as effective as it could be though, since everything is rushed. The purpose of the whole exercise is also a bit lost and confused, and again I felt Carpenter’s version had a lot more humanity for a film which is mostly devoid of it. With this update, however, every ounce of humanity that could have been kept is ditched in favour of cliches and boring rehtoric.

So much has been ditched and so much promise is shown that when it finally ends, you have to wonder what exactly it was trying to pull. Jean-Francois Richet’s direction is swift and crsip, but it lacks fluidity and control which makes the entire experience negative and boring. You feel no empathy for the characters, unlike previous versions. Every one of the characters is just another sterotype we’ve seen before, offering nothing to distinguish themselves from each other. The whole film is just bland.

Hollywood really needs to start thinking about producing new films, instead of spreading the virus of updating and remaking classics. You can try improve on the original, by all means, but at least make an effort to do so and have convinction in what you do. I don’t think the makers of this film were convinced that they had done the best they good, as many ideas feel half cocked and lacking intelligence.

One example would be the helicopter scene – and of course the fact that so many trained men with superior assault rifles, night vision, flash grenades, and bullet proof vests could carry out such a botched job. If you’re wondering what makes it different from before, you’ll have to watch those to understand how this film became even more implausible as it moved along.

Verdict: Will entertain action fans who haven’t seen previous version; a boring mess and a waste of time for those that have the time