Any film remade decades after its initial release is bound to be “modernized” to some extent. After all, what other reason is there to re-tell a story if not to improve on it somehow? While a strong argument can be made that any film brilliant enough to be considered for what Hollywood power-brokers now describe as a “re-imagining” is probably decent enough to be left alone, it is likewise difficult to say that no film would benefit from a modern reworking.

Sometimes the gamble ends up being worthwhile. For example, two low-budget horror tales from the ’70s remade last year–Dawn of the Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre–both benefited from expanded budgets, improved productions, and advances in special-effect technologies that increased the films’ ability to serve their purpose: delivering gory scares. But when a remake brings nothing new to the table, the failure could not be more profound. Consider this year’s mega-flop Alfie, which prematurely assumed Jude Law could pull off the understated charm of Michael Caine. Or Gus Van Sant’s shot-for-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece Psycho–a filmmaking folly on par perhaps only with Ted Turner’s colorizations of classic films in the ’80s.

But what of the film that brings something new to the table, but that something just doesn’t make any sense with the meal you’re having? Such is the case with Jean-Francois Richet’s $30 million “re-imagining” of director John Carpenter’s $100,000 1976 cult classic Assault on Precinct 13. For those who treasure the blunt good vs. evil mechanics of the original film–wherein police and prisoners alike join forces to fight of a siege of an nearly abandoned precinct house by a maniacal Los Angeles street gang–the addition of a slew of touchy-feely talk and sappy subplots will be like a fancy-pants neighbor bringing French fruit flan to your barbeque. It’s a nice gesture, but it kind of defeats the purpose.

This is not to say that the new Assault on Precinct 13 is a bad movie. The film just feels as if it is embarrassed by its pedigree, constantly pulling away from the original rather than paying homage to it.

This distancing makes for quite a contrast between the two films. In the opening scene of the original, Sergeant Bishop offers a resounding “yes” when his new boss asks sarcastically whether he wants to be a hero on his first night out. “There are no heroes anymore, Bishop,” the boss chides, “just men who follow orders.” The rest of the film is a rejection of this idea and the celebration of men and women who are strong enough to improvise and overcome under intense pressure. Meanwhile, here in modern times, Ethan Hawke, who plays the top cop in the new film, is a pill-popping alcoholic who emphatically shuns any heroics and has a beautiful psychologist (Maria Bello) dropping in regularly to make sure he’s okay. In one scene, Hawke has a heart-to-heart with one of his prisoners-cum-allies, during which he describes his illicit-substances regimen, mainly that he prefers to take downers before the uppers to increase the high.

To add insult to injury, they give the hero of the first film’s name, Bishop, to the philosopher/criminal mastermind of the new version, played by Laurence Fishburne. Oh, and the reluctant, quiet secretary warriors of the original have been replaced by The Sopranos’s Drea de Matteo, who wears fishnets, announces to her co-workers “I f*#k bad guys,” and wields a gun that would make Tony proud. Enthusiastically naughty, she serves as one more nail in the coffin for the lulling normalcy of the original.

It’s not only the heroes that have undergone a makeover, either. The brutal nemesis of the original, the gang Street Thunder, has been replaced by a score of dirty Detroit cops. Carpenter has said he created Street Thunder as a “force of nature.” They felt no fear or remorse, and would not hesitate to commit any barbarity. The cops in the remake are reluctant, and their leader, played by Gabriel Byrne, grapples with what he is doing, eventually justifying it as sacrificing the lives inside to save the families of the dirty cops from being destroyed by revelations of the recently-arrested Bishop inside.

These changes complicate the audience’s ability to suspend disbelief. A roving gang is outside the law already, and so illegal activity seems natural. But how do you explain an entire police SWAT team agreeing to join in the murder of fellow officers and civilians? These bad cops bring in night-vision goggles, machine guns, flak jackets, SUVs, and finally, a helicopter to take out the precinct house in the new film. It would have been interesting if the filmmakers had added a scene back at the weapon’s depot while this stuff was being signed out: “So…what are you taking the assault copter out for?” “Um…no reason.”

The new Assault on Precinct 13 is good as far as it goes, but it abandons the very stark, brutal contrasts that made the original film so memorable. Instead, the new film reflects the strange but prevalent attitude in Hollywood that heroes and villains alike are worthless unless they are somehow emotionally tortured. Out here in the real world, good people are being caught daily in the whirlwind of the truly bad. Seeing such a conflict depicted on the silver screen would not be so hard to believe.

Removing the sap from our action movies should be a matter of national pride. After all, it’s been well documented that Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Il, and other various tyrants have had a predilection for American action movies. (Although a certain Iraqi dictator won’t be seeing Assault on Precinct 13 unless the Red Cross brings it to him on DVD.) Who knows who is watching now? We wouldn’t want anyone to start thinking we’ve gone soft.

–Shawn Macomber is a staff writer at The American Spectator and runs the website www.ReturnofthePrimitive.com.