Product Details

• Format: NTSC
• Studio: Paramount
• DVD Release Date: December 21, 2004
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (211 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000USU9QM
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #146,298 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The Manchurian Candidate, a classic of paranoid cinema from the 1960s, gets a cunning update, rife with hot-topic references to corporate war profiteering and electronic voting machines. Major Ben Marco (Denzel Washington, Training Day) has been haunted by nightmares ever since a firefight during the first Gulf War--a battle in which he believes he was saved by the heroism of Sgt. Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber, Kate & Leopold). But Marco's nightmares suggest otherwise and drive him to investigate what happened, which may threaten Shaw's candidacy for vice-president. Meryl Streep plays Shaw's mother, a senior senator who manipulates everyone around her with an iron will and a sharp tongue. The Manchurian Candidate loses steam towards the end, but up until then director Jonathan Demme keeps the movie rolling fluidly, crafting some creepy paranoia of his own while Streep tears into everything in her path. --Bret Fetzer

From The New Yorker

The famous original, from 1962, written by George Axelrod, from a Richard Condon novel, and directed by John Frankenheimer, was a satire of Cold War anxieties that cut both ways, attacking both the far right and the far left. Acidulous and brazenly absurd, the movie was a one-of-a-kind mainstream picture, with startling oddities that people talked about for years. This updated version, written by Daniel Pyne and Dean Georgias and directed by Jonathan Demme, is doggedly, wretchedly earnest. A shadowy big company reminiscent of Halliburton or the Carlyle Group attempts to take over the White House by placing a computer chip in the brain of a war hero turned congressman (Liev Shreiber) who is under the control of his reactionary mother (Meryl Streep), a senator unaccountably made up to look like Hillary Clinton. What was satire of paranoia in the old movie has been turned into just plain paranoia. The bad memories of the hero (Denzel Washington), who suspects that the war hero is a fake, are accompanied by the conventional horror-film frights of painted faces, spooky doctors, and smoky, distorted cinematography. The movie is overwrought and unfocussed, and there isn't a joke in it anywhere. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Use this and the original in a film class, March 5, 2006

By 

Wayne A. (Belfast, Northern Ireland) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Manchurian Candidate (Widescreen Edition) (DVD)

I'd held off for a bit on seeing this; the original Manchurian Candidate is an all-time favorite movie, and, well, you know...
At the end of this film I scooted over to my bookshelf and grabbed the DVD case of the original. My guess was the remake was no more than 90 minutes and the original must have been at least two and 1/2 hours in duration. Good Lord! They were both exactly 129 minutes long!

There's a profound lesson here. The first film, in that wonderful 129 managed to tell a great story, travel a lot, freak me out repeatedly, stun me with novelty (the playing cards, the whole Republican/McCarthy/Lincoln shtick, the "flower show' interrogation, the "jump in a lake", getting drunk with Shaw, and on and on) work in a great love story, work in a tragic love story, work in a pathological love story, and develop a host of intriguing characters, and thrill me with what seemed to be an unending sequence of marvelous performances. The equally lengthy remake stirred little sympathies and seldom got off the ground. As storytelling, the film spun its wheels. You'd think if you remake a movie, ignore character development, ignore any relationship development, ignore any complex and intelligent commentary on modern goings-on (it was just terrorism and corporate involvement in war handled in the most superficial way)--ignore a whale of a lot--you could bring the thing in at about 48 minutes, maybe 60 with commercials. If I watch it again (not likely) I'll have a stop-watch handy and I'll take notes. It was like some magic trick.

So what happened in that 129 minutes anyway? I'm honestly not sure--Denzel Washington sweats a lot and communicated none of the subtlety and complexity that Sinatra managed, Meryl Streep brought on the heretical thought that maybe she's overrated and maybe Angela Lansbury was underrated, I missed Janet Leigh who delivered the same lines splendidly, I missed the black humor and irony and ambiguity, and who the heck was that bad Lawrence Harvey impressionist? Motivations were lost, the WHOLE POINT that everyone hated this guy but parroted their adoration for him wasn't presented clearly, and the motivation for the entire brainwashing venture was muddled up by the script after first stating that it was all about control. What a mess. Every time the film tried to echo the original, it'd already gone so far off track that it just confused matters even worse.

My serious suggestion is that some professor (and not necessarily a film professor) have a class watch both versions, note what went right in 129 minutes in the original, and what went horribly wrong in the 129 minutes of the remake and then have the students try to explain why. My guess is the answers will be fascinating.

It's a one-star movie but I give it two because it was up against impossible-to-beat competition.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Sometimes older is better, January 1, 2005

By 

Larry Scantlebury (Ypsilanti, MI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Manchurian Candidate (Widescreen Edition) (DVD)

My Dad and I used to have this conversation. If you take some of the great plots of the last 40-50 years and use today's technology, liberal attutudes toward sex, violence and heck, reality, don't you come up with a better product? Look at Double Indemnity and then see Body Heat. Kathleen Turner just scorches Barbara Stanwyck. The answer is absolutely.

Yet we all know of some flops where great technology and acting couldn't carry the show. And this is certainly one of them.

First of all, Meryl streep is fantastic. You might have only expected that but still beautiful, powerful, manipulative, evil, sexy . . . she plays it to the hilt. And Denzel also does marvels with what he has to work with. Laurence Harvey was more sympathetic-creepy as Sergeant Raymond Shaw but Liev Shrieber does a credible job.

That's it. The plot is so convoluted that by the end, you have no idea of what's going on. Holy Cow it was an incredible (as in virtually unbelievable) story (Richard Condon) to begin with but Sinatra (I never thought I'd say this) and Harvey and Janet Leigh gave us a road to follow and we did. Here, by hour number 2, Meryl Streep's having conversations with people that I suppose I'm supposed to understand play a significant role but I can't figure out what it is. Or who they are. I thought they were Republican members of the Senate! And the Oedipal thing. Come on. A little over the top. Really pandering.

Don't waste your money. If you see Manchurian, rent the first one. 2 stars. Larry Scantlebury

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Very exciting, with some twists., August 31, 2005

By 

Becky White (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Manchurian Candidate (Widescreen Edition) (DVD)

Of course, I don't usually watch these types of action movies, but I knew that anything Ms. Streep is in must be quality, and I was right. Yes, I did like this movie, although, I remember reading the novel, years ago, and they really changed the story around in this version. Everyone has to keep up with the times, I suppose. The most entertaining things are the plot twists at the end, where you don't really know what's going to happen next -- and Mr. Washington does keep you on the edge of your seat. This movie is definately for the younger crowd. I will reserve anymore judgement to them. I'm sure they will enjoy it more than I.