Shaft (2000)

Have you seen it? No? There is likely a very good reason for that...it stinks.Like nearly ALL the endless remakes and reboots that have been plaguing movie goers for the past decade or so....all this is, is a heartless version of the original.It has no heart.It has no soul.It is a retelling of a film that we all love and cherish...and it adds nothing to the story. It improves nothing but the special effects--which held up very well over time--and in some cases belittles the fans of the original...particularly in the fact that they remade the movie at all, without adding anything clever to it.Like so many other remakes it is a hallow shell of the original.

Overall: Pretty bad movie and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I was very bored and it is just not a good movie. Definitely skip it.Good: Samuel Jackson and Christian Bale do good jobs with what they have throughout the movie. Some other minor characters did a good job also. I really liked the music and thought it blended well with the more 80's cop side of the movie.Bad: The movie feels pointless due to the 'shock' ending twist which makes me feel as if I had wasted my time watching it. It is good to see him punished but I would have preferred for him to see the inside of a cell. The characters are just sheer unlikeable or you don't care or they have no real motivations. It also don't feel like it knows what it is. One side you've got the goofy 80's cop show feel with groovy music and cheesy dialogue while on the other side you've got the uber serious story featuring themes of race and discrimination. Not to say that serious comedies can't work but if that was the intention it was done abysmally. The action scenes were horrific and just bored me throughout them, especially the final climax. The movie tried to cram in too many characters when a protagonist, antagonist and 1-2 cop buddies would have sufficed. Also unless I missed the scene in which he rejoins the police force then I refuse to let it slide that he broke the law numerous times and got away with it.Best Part: The opening 20 minutes were they catch Bale made me interested in the story and were they could take it but that interest was short lived.MVP: Samuel Jackson as John Shaft3/10

An homage to the blaxploitation films of the late '60s, early '70s, Samuel L. Jackson stars in the title role of "Shaft". More of a sequel to the successful earlier series that starred Richard Roundtree than a reboot, it follows the exploits of John Shaft, the nephew of the original detective John Shaft, who is once again portrayed by Roundtree. Shaft is a New York City cop who arrests a racist rich heir (Christian Bale) who beats a black restaurant patron to death for no reason. The heir gets bail and skips town, but returns to years later. Shaft makes it his business to hunt him down. He also is hunting down the sole witness to the murder, who doesn't want to be found. When he finally catches the heir, he is once again given bail, which causes Shaft to quit the force and take measures into his own hands. The heir enlists the aid of a local Hispanic drug lord to hunt down the witness to silence her. This film is VERY relevant to today's ills of society, and the tension between the races that exists today. It also is a throwback to the old series, with MUCH better acting, as Jackson and Bale both command the screen. Good turns by Vanessa Williams as Shaft's partner and Toni Colette as the witness, and a great, over-the-top performance by Jeffrey Wright as the drug lord makes the movie much superior to its predecessors. Great flick for action movie fans.

When it's got these three leads, it's got to be worth checking out, right? Well, yes and no. The first half was really good, with snappy dialog, crisp performances and a potentially decent story. Then, it went downhill, with clichés galore, a ridiculously over the top storyline which turned into a car chase gun fest for no good reason I could think of. Samuel L. Jackson is terrific as John Shaft, and enjoyed the original Shaft making a reappearance as the uncle. As for the Latino bad guy - he was a cartoon character - I felt it was insulting for him to be directed to speak in ridiculous pidgin English in a ludicrously over the top gay Latino way (it was borderline racist, in my view).Still, the film was fun at times, but ultimately a failure.