Netflix Global #1 Taken by 40%-Rated Remake That Has Nothing on 100%-Rated Original

Summary:

• The Wages of Fear, which was released this year and came as a remake of another cult film, suddenly managed to dominate Netflix 's top in several countries despite poor critics’ reviews.
• The brand new film is very approximate, yet very enlarged by visual effects, version of the story that follows a group of European men that have to accomplish a serious mission for an American oil company.
• The 2024’s version is pretty much inferior to the original movie and even to the latter’s previous remake that was released in 1977.

The era of remakes has never flourished like this before — and though many of them aren’t that good, they still have a chance to climb to the tops. This is exactly the case of the 2024’s action thriller The Wages of Fear that got its inspiration directly from a 1953’s very famous French cult movie.

The modern remake has been showing some unexpectedly good results recently as the film has managed to become Netflix's number one film in several countries like France, Belgium or Switzerland this week.

Though despite the promising ascent, the cinema history still remembers how The Wages of Fear was trashed by critics thus ending up with only 40% on Rotten Tomatoes against the impeccable 100% of the original movie.

Is New The Wages of Fear Worth Watching?

The new film borrows almost everything from the original starting with the name and ending with the plot, except for, probably, some modern visual effects. The storyline of the 1953’s movie starring Yves Montand and Charles Vanel follows a group of luckless European men who find a job in an American oil company and thus have to carry out a complicated mission of driving two trucks full of nitroglycerine through mountain meandering roads.

The 2024’s version explicitly tries to stand out by its seemingly impressive action-movie-packed stunts that here make the most of the plot — unlike Henri-Georges Clouzot’s film.

Being limited in visual effects, the original focused more on the story itself by trying to make it more realistic. As a result of this, the original extends for more than 2 hours while the remake doesn’t even reach the 2-hour run.

So far it seems quite obvious that The Wages of Fear of 2024 is far from being the best remake of the 1953’s classic (there was one more attempt, and this time much more successful with the critics, made by William Friedkin in 1977 — and the solid 82% on Rotten Tomatoes speak volumes).

The only hope is for the Netflix’s viewers that suddenly got interested now. If you want to make up your own mind, The Wages of Fear is available for streaming on Netflix since March 29.