The 2010 remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street last weekend. Not one I was planning on. For some reason my girlfriend picked it out of my collection. I was somewhat surprised since she usually doesn't handle horror movies well, and the fact that she chose to see the remake as opposed to the original 1984 classic version (which I obviously prefer). I'll say what I've generally said before about it. I don't think Haley was bad in the role, although his version and the way it was written came off a lot more flat on screen compared to Englund's. But if anything he was actually one of the very few redeeming elements of the film. He obviously had fun doing it (watch behind the scenes), and he had fair amount of charisma (just not Englund's magic). I really do not like Rooney Mara as Nancy. Not just because I prefer Langenkamp by thousands of miles, but also the fact that Mara herself has said she despises taking the role, and is truly ungrateful. Some even have the feeling that she purposely turned in a dull and wooden performance. She easily may have given her attitude, but either way I doubt she would have been much better with or without more effort. The dream sequences while having the right tone, were completely unimaginative and felt lazy. The part of the story where they have you think that potentially Krueger was innocent is interesting and intriguing, but is ultimately pointless. Also I would have made Cassidy's "Kris" and Dekker's "Jesse" our leads over Mara's "Nancy" and Gallner's "Quentin" as they were able to show just a bit of chemistry as a couple instead of the dull duo we got. Quentin and Nancy had almost no chemistry together both because of what I talked about regarding Mara's performance earlier, and just the fact that Gallner did not do well in general either. The ending "fight" felt anti-climatic and way too short, especially opposed to the final chase/fight sequence in the original. That was clever, intense and fun where as the remake version fell flat. Although Nancy's mother's death was better in this version, it doesn't really do anything for the rest of the movie.
