This is yet another Hollywood remake, and thankfully, I did not see the first one from 1962 with the same title. I hear it really sucks. The new life of "The Manchurian Candidate" comes with the talents of Denzel Washington (The Hurricane), Live Schreiber (RKO 281), Meryl Streep (Angels in America), Jeffrey Wright (Angels in America), Jon Voight (Ali) and director Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia). Okay, I count four Academy Awards® in that bunch and a huge amount of Golden Globes®.

"The Manchurian Candidate," 2004 version, follows Ben Marco (Washington) after he is visited by fellow Desert Storm veteran Marvin (Wright). Marvin complains about having nightmares, which tell a different tale about what exactly happened during an ambush in Kuait. Supposedly, fellow vet Raymond Shaw (Schreiber) was the absolute hero of the day.

Shaw is now an accomplished career politician, the son of a late West Virginia senator, his father, and the senator who succeeded him, his mother. The time is election year 2004, the country wants a future free from fear of homeland attacks, and Shaw's mother senator Eleanor Shaw (Streep) convinces the Democratic party to oust Senator Tom Jordan (Voight) for the vice presidential nomination, replacing him with her youthful son.

So, we soon find out Ben Marco is also having bad dreams and seeks out everyone involved in the ambush to see if they have them as well, including Shaw. However, Shaw has bigger problems. He is actually the top experiment of a large corporation called Manchurian Global, which funded the operation, to make Shaw an electronic puppet, hoping to place a sleeper in the White House.

The story goes on from there pretty much. There is also a growing relationship between Marco and Rosie, played by Kimberly Elise (John Q), who ends up predictably being on the inside of one party involved in the matter. I felt their relationship went WAY too fast, for a woman of 2004, basically allowing a stranger such as Marco into her home. This finally made me realize, "Oh, she's keeping tabs on him. She's undercover for someone." Just a bit predictable.

The other problem I had with the picture was with the reflective character Delp, played by Swiss actor Bruno Ganz (Downfall). Ganz plays some sort of private research scientist, giving Marco all the answers to his science questions, cause now the military thinks he's crazy.

We are given NO back-story between these two, but they seem to have some sort of friendly history. We never learn it. Delp mentions something about Marco helping him out of Lithuania, but it is never fleshed out. Their relationship comes off hollow.

What I really liked about the movie was Hollywood showed the Democrats being the bad guys. Well, at least one democrat being the REAL bad guy. However, filmmakers didn't have the guts to actually call the characters Democrats. There are scenes of passing dialogue which describe prospective candidates' feelings towards terrorists, signifying they are far from the left side of the aisle.

I was recently told critic Roger Ebert (TV's At the Movies) stated these characters were actually Republicans POSING as Democrats. How flawlessly stupid is that? There is no evidence this is true in the picture's text. Ebert surprises me sometimes with stupid analysis like that sometimes.

What does make the story a little shaky is that this Democrat candidate is being controlled by big business, which traditionally votes Republican, but the corruption of Streep's character was pretty well founded and made the storyline acceptable.

I don't have to say the picture was well acted. Look at the roster. It speaks for itself. They were the only reason I went to the theater to see it.

I was pleased to see this version of "Manchurian Candidate" was rewritten to be timely and focus on U.S. security concerns post 9/11/01. It made me, as a viewer, more involved in an otherwise difficult-to-believe storyline.

Jonathan Demme's look-straight-into-the-camera style seemed to work for this picture. I also appreciated the lighting design in much of the "puppetry" scenes. You'll see what I mean if you see it.

The denouement of the picture was fairly cheesy, especially after a pretty exciting and satisfying ending.

Overall, I had fun at this picture. It's not an Academy Award® contender, but it is pretty heavy hitting as far as entertainment quality goes. I've seen far worse this year.

Benn - Where's the Humanity?