‘Crazies’ a pleasant surprise

There’s a lot to dislike about remakes. Not only because they represent a cultural dead end but also because they’re often superfluous and lazy. Why bother coming up with new or creative concepts when it’s much easier to pay Michael Bay to make another version of “Krull” or whatever? However, the shear ubiquity of Hollywood remakes means that eventually one of these films will have to be entertaining in some small way. That day has finally arrived with the release of “The Crazies,” a film that is entertaining in, not just some, but several small ways.

“The Crazies” takes place in Ogden Marsh, one of those idyllic small towns where it’s always spring and the town’s doctor (Radha Mitchell) still makes house calls. But this tranquility is shattered when the town drunk interrupts a baseball game by calmly walking across the field brandishing a shotgun. With no other choice, the sheriff (Timothy Olyphant) shoots him dead. Believing this to be an isolated incident, Olyphant is stunned when other citizens start acting out in erratic yet violent ways (such as the farmer who burns his family alive while he whistles “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”). What’s the cause of all of this strange behavior, and what’s the government’s involvement in this? More importantly, was that Lynn Lowry, the star of the original version of “The Crazies,” wearing pigtails and riding a bicycle? All of these questions (nerdish and otherwise) are answered over the course of the film.

The original version of “The Crazies” was written and directed by George Romero and released just five years after “Night of the Living Dead.” Although boasting a strong premise, the film’s ambitions were far outmatched by its paltry budget. And like a number of Romero’s least successful projects, its political commentary was often easy and heavy-handed. “The Crazies” was one of those rare, uneven films that actually deserved to get a remake. It needed someone to beef up the budget, cut out the fat and finally give us the suspenseful film that “The Crazies” was always meant to be. Who would have ever guessed that Breck Eisner, the guy who gave us the bloated misfire “Sahara,” would be the person to do this?

Granted, this updated version lacks the moral ambiguity of the original, but what it lacks in complexity it more than makes up in inventiveness. Eisner has a knack for making you realize just how frightening a carwash can really be, and you got to love any director that includes a scene where someone is stabbed by a man who has a knife plunged through the front of his palm or gives us a morgue attendant who paints Xs on the eyelids of his corpses.

Still, there are some minor complaints. The remake is a little too slick for its own good, and unlike the original, it isn’t afraid to spell out everything for its audience (the original never revealed how or why the outbreak began). The film also takes the easy, more marketable way out by turning its infected antagonists into zombies, thus making this yet another film about the overexposed and now uninteresting undead. Still, “The Crazies” is a solid and consistently tense film. Hopefully, Eisner’s upcoming remake of David Cronenberg’s “The Brood” will be as pleasantly surprising as this film.

Rating: W W 1/2