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'Friday the 13th' may have been panned by critics when first released but since then it is one of the most famous and influential horror films, the franchise containing one of horror's most iconic villains. The film is popular enough to become a franchise and spawn several sequels of varying quality and generally inferior to the one that started it all off.
It is very easy to call the 2009 'Friday the 13th' as a remake, for reasons that are easy to understand. Personally am actually to judge 'Friday the 13th' (2009) as a reboot rather than a remake. While not quite as bad as has been said, it even fails by reboot standards. There was no point to it whatsoever, the series should just have stopped at the last sequel and even then the series was severely fatigued, the fifth or sixth for me was the last watchable 'Friday the 13th' film, and there is very little to recommend it judging it as an overall film.
Entries like 'Jason Takes Manhattan' and 'Jason X' may have been heavily problematic and less than mediocre, but credit is due to them for trying to do something different. 'Friday the 13th' (2009) has very few ideas of its own and the very few attempted were either cheaply executed (such as an out of character Jason), felt like they were lifted from another film (too many of the deaths are sadistic enough to be near-'Saw' territory) and more horror genre clichés done to death.
The story is suggestive of the series being completely stale and takes forever to get going after the first 20 minutes, with very little happening and with a lot of gratuitous, cheap and pointless elements. Apart from one respectable performance, the acting is horrendous even by 'Friday the 13th' standards, the characters are ones you want dead fast and have nothing interesting about them and the dialogue would likely make even more forgiving people embarrassed. The ending is far too abrupt and anti-climactic, as well as going too far with the ridiculousness.
Very few of the deaths are that memorable or disturbing, they're just too sadistic and paced too fast to make much impact. There is a severe shortage of suspense and scares, next to zero in both departments past the opening, replaced instead by childish humour and an overdose of gore, nudity and profanity that adds nothing. Pacing is erratic and the direction is often lifeless, especially in most of the first half. Can remember very little distinguished or memorable about the music, mostly one of the series' best assets now completely forgettable here.
Despite these many drawbacks, there are positives. The first 20 minutes were absolutely great, it was tense, scary, clever, suspenseful and compelling. It actually gave the feeling that the series had redeemed itself.
Technically, apart from some slapdash MTV-like editing that just didn't belong the production values were stylish and atmospheric.
Although no Kane Hodder, Derek Mears is a wholly respectable and imposingly unsettling Jason.
Overall, started off so well and then went downhill like water down the plughole. 3/10 Bethany Cox
3/10
