Daniel Cadwallader takes a look at the fashion for 80s remakes in Hollywood and asks have they run out of ideas?

Ah the 1980s, the so-called decade that taste forgot, synonymous with crap fashion, rampant consumerism and pit closures. That’s despite this decade producing a lot of brilliant stuff as well. The Dead Kennedys, Public Enemy, Blue Velvet, Hill Street Blues and the first (and best) Terminator movie. With such a rich cultural seam, it’s not surprising that as we start a new decade, the signs of a full-on revival are becoming apparent.

This summer looks set to be dominated by a movie remake of that most 80s of TV shows, The A-Team. Featuring Liam “He’ll be in anything” Neeson as Hannibal and American cage fighter Quinton “Rampage” Jackson as B.A., the trailer suggests that it takes the full throttle insanity of the series as a starting point and then turns everything up 11. While I have no doubt that the film will be mindlessly entertaining (B.A. has pity tattooed on one hand and fool on the other, nuff said) I can’t help but wonder if the current raft of remakes shows a frightening lack of imagination in Hollywood.

Horror movies are always the worst for this and you only have to look at the number of them that have been remade over the last few years (Friday the 13^th, Last House on the Left, My Bloody Valentine, The Hills have Eyes)  to see the laziness of it. A Nightmare on Elm Street is currently riding high on the American box office, and while horror fans will eat it up, it‘s disappointing to think that apart from The Descent and [REC] there hasn’t been a descent, original horror movie in years.

Not that the mainstream is innocent of this either. 2009 saw a remake of insipid 80s musical Fame hitting our screens, though to relatively low fan fare. Despite this, Fame was probably the start of this revival and it’s safe to say that this is the year when we really see the 80s reasserting itself in a flurry of neon leg warmers and massive hair.

As well as the A-Team, this summer will see Jackie Chan take on the mantel of the legendary Mr. Miyagi in the Karate Kid remake, with Will Smith’s son, Jaden, taking on the role of his young protégé trying to make a new life for himself in China. To be honest I thought the original was crap so I’m not massively excited at the prospect.

This autumn sees a remake of early 80s “classic” Red Dawn, in which a rag-tag army of American teenagers are the country’s only hope against a communist invasion. With the Soviet Union having inconveniently collapsed over twenty years ago, the Russians have been replaced by the Chinese for this “re-imaging” and I can’t say that’ll be good for their trade relations. Let’s just hope it doesn’t give us a new Patrick Swayze (the breakaway star of the original.)

Now it may sound like I’m pretty down on the whole 80s thing but there is one movie I’m truly excited about and that’s the Tron sequel. Set twenty years after the original it tells the story of Sam Flynn and his quest to find his father Kevin (Jeff Bridges reviving his role from the original) and take down the evil master control program. Recreating the neon cyber space world using the latest in digital and 3D technology; this is what I like to refer to as good 80s.

It won’t end there either. The internet rumour mill is full of stories of up-and-coming remakes. Among the most exciting is true classic Robocop, clearly due for a paint job of contemporary ultra-violence, and Flash Gordon, who after an abortive TV remake needs to see its credibility restored. It’s not all good news though. Tristar look set to ruin my childhood memories of the awesome Short Circuit and MTV are set to turn the appalling Michael J. Fox vehicle Teen Wolf into a new TV show. God Why!

So does all this mean that Hollywood has lost its originality? Well yes and no. The constant spew of sequels and remakes isn’t a new thing, it’s endemic of a film industry that is too scared to take risks. However when this happens it doesn’t take too long for the punters to get bored and look elsewhere. Potentially this could mean that in a year or two Hollywood will see a new surge of creativity in the attempt to get people back in the multiplexes, we just have to stick it out till then.