Movie Review: The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let's Do the Time Warp Again (2016)

For the past 41 years people have flocked to theaters every Saturday night at midnight to watch Richard O'Brien's beloved cult classic stage musical turned film: The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The cheesy campy tribute to science fiction and horror films of yesteryear has since its inception inspired the idea of hurling callbacks at films, people forming shadow casts and miming the film in costume as it plays, people to follow their dreams, wider practice of drag, acceptance for people of all kinds, and more. Recently, a remake of the film (which had been in production for at least a year and a half) was released under the direction of Kenny Ortega (who directed Hocus Pocus, High School Musical trilogy, and Michael Jackson's This is It) was released.

Replacing the original cast is the following:

• Laverne Cox as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the Mad Scientist
• Victoria Justice as Janet Weiss, the Heroine
• Ryan McCartan as Brad Majors, the Hero
• Annaleigh Ashford as Columbia, the Groupie
• Adam Lambert as Eddie, the Ex-Delivery Boy
• Reeve Carney as Riff-Raff, the Handyman
• Christina Milian as Magenta, the Domestic Servant
• Staz Nair as Rocky, Frank's Creation
• Ivy Levan as Trixie, the Usherette
• Ben Vereen as Dr. Everett von Scott, the Rival Scientist
• Tim Curry as the Narrator/Criminologist
• Jayne Eastwood as The Butler
• Jeff Lillico as Ralph Hapschatt
• Kelly Van der Burg as Betty Hapschatt-Munroe
• Sal Piro as The Photographer

I'm just going to say right off the bat that I think the majority of the parts in this movie were miscast. In fact, the only person I felt came even remotely close to fitting their part was Carney. This film's Riff-Raff was the only one who came even remotely close to being like their character. Everyone else felt awkward, out of place, and often times like they really just didn't care; as though it were just a paycheck to them and not something they felt dedicated to. Ashford especially seemed like she wasn't having a good time when doing all the Columbia parts. She had none of the sparkle and excitement that Nell Campbell had. It also didn't feel like the cast had any real chemistry. Everyone was just playing their individual parts instead of actually playing together to make things feel more organic.

I'm going to tread into some dangerous territory and address Cox's performance as the lead role Dr. Frank-N-Furter. Personally I feel she was completely wrong for the role for multiple reasons. Now before any of you get up in arms and say I'm attacking her just because she is trans, calm down. I think the fact that trans-people are starting to get more important roles in film and TV is fantastic. I'm all for it.

In this case however, I feel that one of the big reasons Cox doesn't fit the part is that it seems a bit redundant to me for a woman to play the role of a man who dresses like a woman. You can't really call yourself a sweet transvestite when you're not actually a transvestite. You're just a woman dressed in flashy clothes. Because of all that, the shock value is gone. I do kind of get what they were trying to do when casting her for the part. They wanted to update the character a bit for this generation, but in this case I just don't think it works.

That isn't to say that she didn't have the right attitude (though at times she had the completely wrong reaction to things, such as when she leads into I'm Going Home and she is smiling and calm instead of panicking). You can tell she at least gave it her best effort in most areas. However, that didn't really make up for things like what I mentioned above as well as the fact that her voice both in and out of song was just annoying. It had none of the strangely alluring class and charm that Tim Curry's had. It just sounded like Cox was trying to do a bad imitation of Curry and it showed.

On another note, I think it was a mistake to bring back Tim Curry. I know many of you might be thinking I'm kind of nuts, considering he was the original Frank-N-Furter but since he has had a stroke and is bound to a wheel chair he lacks a lot of the necessary things to play the Criminologist. You can tell with how slow, strained, and emotionless his speech is now that he was kind of phoning in his performance. As much as I am a fan of Curry I think they should have gotten someone who could have done the moves to the Time Warp, given all the spoken parts the kind of inflection they need, and not had to have certain Criminologist segments dropped.

I definitely was not particularly fond of Vereen as Dr. Scott. I am still trying to understand the reasoning behind casting him for that part. The dude didn't seem even remotely German. Didn't even try to fake a German accent. He sounded more British than anything. Not very convincing when Frank-N-Furter exposed him for being a German.

Now for one of the most important aspects: Did the music get done justice? Sad to say, absolutely not. Just...no. It sounded like a lackluster passionless episode of Glee. There was no passion. No energy. No soul. None of the original magic whatsoever. It was so ridiculously over produced (studio-wise). So many of the leads on most of the songs just sounded like they were phoning it in and not putting in the kind of prowess these songs require.

When singing a Rocky song it's important for whoever is singing it to sound like they are having the time of their life (like all their rock n' roll dreams have come true, according to O'Brien), otherwise it just falls flat. It also didn't help that so many of the actors/actresses had annoying voices (I cringed every time Cox sang). The only people who had any amount of singing skill at all were Lambert and Justice. Even then I still think they could have gotten better people for the parts musically.

The pacing of the film was also particularly bad. I kept noticing that the whole time everything felt rushed, as though they were just trying to get from one scene to the next as quickly as possible so they could just have the film done and over with. Personally I was ok with that, given how bad the other aspects of the movie were. However, I still think they should have slowed it back down a bit to give things more time to build and to let us ruminate in the atmosphere the film created for us. The quickness however took out a lot of the places for callbacks to be done, which since this remake was also meant to be a celebration of that part of the Rocky culture is counter-intuitive.

I also didn't care for how the remake couldn't make up its mind as to whether or not it was the stage play or the film. The cut backs to the audience watching the film with one or two call backs could definitely be confusing for someone just coming in who has never seen the original and is also completely unfamiliar with the culture the film has created. Those people would be completely lost.

After beating up on so many parts of this movie, there were a few things that I DID like. Shocker, right?

One of the things I was particularly fond of was the fact that in many of the scenes there was an actual rock band with instruments "playing" along to the songs that were currently going on at a given moment. Personally I find that clever and creative. In fact, if I were to do my own stage production or film version of Rocky I would have done the exact same thing myself.

I also found the film rather visually appealing. One thing I will give it over the original is that it is quite prettier to look at in some respects. You can tell that a decent bit of the remake's $20 million budget went into making things more colorful, elaborate, and inviting to the eyes. The original seemed a bit drab visually at times because of the lack of budget and available locations for them to film at. This on the other hand sunk quite a bit of money into addressing that (though quite frankly [no pun intended] I think they should have used it on better acting and music production).

I LOVED what they did with the intro. While the Patricia Quinn lips are iconic, I'm incredibly pleased that they brought Trixie back into the new version of the film. She was the usherette from the stage play that got left out of the original version of the film. I liked having her around welcoming people into the theater (which also ended up being the castle in the film) to see the show. One part of nodding to Rocky culture was the kind of people being let in. Most of them were clad in black leather and other dark clothing and looked very alternative.

Overall I appreciate the fact that such a massive underground following of a film after multiple decades was able to get a major network to want to remake it with an actual budget (even if it was just for TV). However, some times if something has that big of a following and has been so established in people's hearts and minds for so long it should just be left alone. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

The remake focuses too much on what made the original weird, rather than campy and charming. The original was bad deliberately and did so in a way that made it feel like it was paying tribute to the old horror and sci-fi films that inspired it. The remake has none of that kind of appeal.

This is NOT something I would recommend anyone watch - whether they are a long time fan or someone coming in for the first time. I would honestly just recommend you going to your local showing of the original Rocky Horror Picture Show. If you don't have one within reasonable driving distance, just rent or buy the DVD. It's MUCH more worth your while.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let's Do the Time Warp Again receives 1 out of 5 stars.