Tower

Riff - White Men Can’t Jump

Day mostly at home with the Mrs, lazing about. Watched Ratatouille, which was still great, Ant Man: Quantum-mania (not as bad as people say, but Marvel is getting stale) and the remake of White Men Can’t Jump, which… sucks.

Why watch it? White Men Can’t Jump was a real favourite of mine back in the day because I loved basketball a lot. The music was banging, and I realised this when I got older, the story and acting was really good, handling the unhealthy fragility of masculinity. It goes without saying, Wesley Snipes, Woody Harrelson and Rosie Perez talents pulled off a layered script setting it apart from most films at the time. It exuded a very vibrant energy and style of the early 90s.

The 2023 version had a pretty good soundtrack and really nice cinematography but the plot, basketball and character development was half baked. It was just a bunch of Tik Tok short form skits mashed into a “movie”. It’s good trailer material, but shoddy movie making. I’m a Kenya Barris fan because of Blackish but the screenplay here is very sitcom level and better in 20 minute bursts. Similar to You People (which wasted the acting talents involved), it had half-baked ideas that were seemed good during the script-brainstorming sessions but not well realised.

The new one just made me want to re-watch the old one again. Remakes are good if you can bring something fresh and telling of the times. This new one just tells me how void of content and originality big studio pictures have these days. It’s so disconnected.