Rosemarys Baby Digital

You cannot improve on the original, but Zoe Saldana is very appealing as the young woman who is taken in unwittingly by a coven that wants her to have a demonic child. Waiting for part two.

There’s two ways you can react to a new version of “Rosemary’s Baby.” The first one is to completely write it off and make the assumption that no one could do a better job of adapting Ira Levin’s bestseller than Roma Polanski did in 1968. The other reaction is to take it as a new vision of the book that isn’t trying to be a remake of the first movie and enjoy or hate it for what it is according to its own merits. I think the one thing we can all agree on is that if the Satanic Panic-type films of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s are going to be introduced to a whole new generation of viewers, there’s no better place to start than with “Rosemary’s Baby.” After all, it really is where the trend began for mainstream moviegoers. Young Rosemary Woodhouse (Zoe Saldana) and her husband (Patrick J. Adams) move to Paris after he is offered a job there. After a residential fire, the couple are invited to live in a luxurious apartment by landlord’s Roman (Jason Isaacs) and Margaux Castevet (Carole Bouquet). Rosemary becomes pregnant and her eccentric neighbors shower her with kindness and devotion. She begins to suspect they’re only after one thing following an investigation into the building’s mysterious ties to the occult. Rosemary believes the supportive bunch are a coven of witches looking to sacrifice her baby to stay young. There’s no doubt in my mind that everyone involved in the new version of “Rosemary’s Baby” was dedicated to the project. Zoe Saldana completely embraces her role as the damaged-yet-hopeful Rosemary, who desperately wants to do the right thing for her unborn child. Jason Isaacs and Carole Bouquet are deliciously wicked playing the reserved but extremely persuasive Castevets. “Rosemary’s Baby” is not rated. However, I would give it a PG-13 rating for adult situations, sensuality, and disturbing images. There’s a bit of gore and some sex scenes without nudity. There’s no heavy religious message to be found within “Rosemary’s Baby.” If it teaches you anything, it’s that you need to be careful what you’re willing to sacrifice for material success and temporary happiness. Although it deals with Satan and his powers, it’s not evangelical in any form and doesn’t preach at the viewer in regards to their spiritual life. The DVD version of Rosemarys Baby contains some limited bonus material. Two featurettes explore behind the scenes of the movie in Fear is Born: The Making of Rosemarys Baby and Grand Guignol: Parisian Production Design. The cast and crew are interviewed about their roles in the film and expand on filming in the most romantic city on Earth. People who have never seen Roman Polanski’s “Rosemary’s Baby” and haven’t read anything about it will no doubt enjoy this updated version more than those already exposed to the classic tale. I found it to be entertaining and thrilling at times. Was it as good as Polanski’s 1968 version? I wouldn’t say so. Did it seem to dig a little deeper and expand on the concept more than the original? Yes, considering it was a two-part movie and had around 34 minutes more to flesh things out.

With all due respect to reviewer John Bowen, one does not need to be a person who hates all remakes to find this one sadly lacking. Yes, the production values are high and the acting is good. But it is now an entirely different, and far less effective, movie. For starters, to pander to todays audiences bloodlust, a lot of graphic gore has been added, something that was completely absent in the magnificent original. For instance, when Rosemary is told that her apartment building once housed the notorious Trench Sisters, who allegedly indulged in cannibalism, instead of learning about it through a casual reference in conversation, as in the original, here we have to be subjected to a flashback sequence showing the sisters kill and graphically dismember a man, blood squirting in their faces, a hatchet hacking off his arm, etc. And where Rosemarys friend Hutch, who tries to warn her, discreetly dies off camera in a coma in the original (and teasingly leaves us wondering what exactly happened), here he (changed now to an investigative police officer) has convulsions in his car with blood running out of his nose before being squashed like a bug by a large truck that smears him all over the pavement like a giant packet of ketchup. What was gained by this? More detrimental is the fact that this remake gives away too much, way too soon. What made the original such an effective chiller was the fact that so much was left ambiguous up until the end. The viewer of that version has to piece together the various bits of evidence at the same time Rosemary does, so that we share in her gradual discovery and growing horror. In the remake, it is quickly established upfront that the Castevets are evil Satanists who have supernatural powers and can grotesquely kill people at their whim, which they do in several additional scenes of gratuitous bloodshed. As a result, the final revelation that was so shocking in the original becomes entirely anticlimactic, almost beside the point. One is forced to ask why this remake was undertaken at all. Was it just to add visible bloodshed? Why didnt they just come up with a new story in which victims are mangled in graphic detail by Satanists instead of trashing what was and remains a masterpiece? In the hands of Roman Polanski, who adhered remarkably to the details of the original novel, Rosemarys Baby was an extraordinarily effective and subtle psychological thriller that actually made you think even as it more and more scared the bejeezus out of you. Agnieszka Holland, on the other hand, who directed this tasteless trash, has managed to transform it into just another gory slasher flick. No need to think, no need for innuendo, just buckets of blood to satisfy adolescent hunger for gross-out violence. Perhaps Holland should have renamed her hatchet-job Rosemarys Abortion.

Awesome.

At first, I thought this was a regular show. I was happy to find out it was a mini series. I liked the original movie. This version however, was awful. One of the stupidest, most boring, predictable, awful ending things I have ever seen. On top of that, the acting, if one would call it that, was about as dry as a tumble weed who has lived in the desert for a hundred years. I actually only watched because I was bored. I would never again watch this version. Such a lame version. In closing, absolutely, awful. One of the worst things I have ever seen.

Not very scary to me. The original was better than this any day!

The movies is great at first I was confused about what was going on but I watched it over and it was the good mystery. The movie had me up in my seat the whole time.

There are a few car accident scenes in this movie. But in truth, the entire production is one mesmerizing car crash. There was no need to remake Rosemarys Baby. I viewed the original for the first time two years ago, and it didnt seem so dated as to warrant a new version. The original is a classic; this is forgettable. Whats worse, this version is very long. In its television miniseries broadcast, it was split into two movie-length parts. The only thing worse than a bad movie is a long bad movie. Whats different between the two versions? Plot-wise, not much at all. Some of the few significant changes, though, are off the mark and only serve to distract the viewer. First and foremost among them: Rosemary is black! Casting decided to fill the role memorably portrayed by Mia Farrow with a black actress that Ive never heard of before...within a script that completely ignores the fact that shes black. She and her white husband, Guy, are urban Americans residing in France, and yet Rosemary is the whitest American black woman next to Halle Berry: soft-spoken, delicate, dainty, and actually emulative of Mia Farrows depiction of the character, which this movie was reputedly meant to bring forward into the modern age. Why? What was the point? By all means, there would be no problem with making her black, but at least allow the character to be informed by that identity. Having her be black is also somewhat odd, though, since Rosemary isnt exactly the most common name given to urban black women. It isnt as though they could have changed that detail, though, without changing the title of the movie. At one point another character (Margaux) comments on the strangeness of her name, but only manages to respond to it by calling it feminine. As opposed to what? All the butch girls names out there? Even the writers could sense that something was off, but they could barely put a finger on it, let alone offer a rebuttal. How bizarre. Another change is the age of the main antagonists, the Castevets. In the original, these were played by the elderly. Here in the remake, the couple, Roman and Margaux, are middle aged. This alteration is actually more of a problem than one might first think. In both versions the Castevets have an ulterior motive for befriending Guy and Rosemary, but in the original this comes off as more plausible, as an old retired couple doting upon their younger neighbors. Played by a younger couple, though, their interest in Guy and Rosemary is strikingly odd, so much so that a sane Guy and Rosemary should have been turned off by the scarcely warranted attention. This is papered over by having Rosemary do a good deed for Margaux in returning her stolen wallet, but the scale of the favors that Margaux returns to her in exchange are glaringly lopsided (a cat, an apartment, a closet of fitted clothes, unyielding attention). And this is all before Guy makes a deal with the devil. It doesnt make sense. Rosemary has two advocates. One is Julie, who is her peer (and, as the plot requires, a convenient expert on Coptic Christian trivia), and the other is police Commissioner Fontaine, who she meets initially at Romans party. This is also problematic, in that the incorruptible officer is introduced to the viewer in a venue otherwise populated by Romans sycophantic satanists. It would seem sloppy for Roman to have included him on the guest list. Nonetheless, the script, actors, and director do a good job with these two characters, who are unique to the remake, and their inevitable death scenes are fun. All the other major plot points are straight out of the original movie, phoned in with little in the way of inspiration. I think the only difference in the final cradle scene is that its shot from the opposite end of the room from the original. This movie is not up to the caliber of a truly good miniseries remake, such as Steven Kings the Shining. Despite its length, it brings nothing new to the table and fails to make a case for its needing to have been produced.

Does what it says on the tin!