Remake of Steel Magnolias on Lifetime Television

And why would that be necessary to remake one of my favorite movies, you ask?
Well, that was my question, which is what prompted me to record and watch this piece of crap.

And yes, I most often review real films not made for tv movies, but I couldn't help but write how bad this "movie" was and how completely unnecessary it was for anyone to remake it.

So here we go...

Airing on Lifetime television, I saw that someone had decided to remake this movie, but use an all African-American cast.  I thought perhaps the original play had focused on this race of women, but no, as far as I understand it was not.  It was based on a man who lost his sister to diabetes and could not cope with it well so he started writing about it, and eventually it became a play.

So first off, I must mention there were no black people in the original film, which is unfortunate, since the world is full of all breeds, and the south also has many African-Americans.  Even the remake had Ouiser's old flame be a white man, although her dog was no longer a St. Bernard, but instead, a black lab...It was not lost on me.

I think the reason to redo something is to put your own spin on it, right?  But huge chunks of dialogue were copied, verbatim, for the remake.  Just changing the color of your cast, doesn't amount to a big enough difference to allow for a complete regurgitation of script.

Queen Latifah was playing the mother, Sally Field's old role, and she lacked conviction.  Her speech about her daughter's death was not moving, not emotional, and nothing special.  I have been more convinced from her speeches during a Cover Girl cosmetics commercial.  A totally laughably bad character in the hands of Queen Latifah, she was wayyyyyy out of her range.

And don't ask me about the scene right after her daughter dies.  You know the part where they're in the hospital and she's telling everyone how to get ready for the funeral then turns and runs out of the waiting room to go get the only piece left of her daughter still living?  Well, for Sally Field they showed her driving at dawn to go get Jack, strong, emotional, believable, but in the Lifetime version, Latifah just turns away from her family in the waiting room and starts running through the hospital.  It looks like she just forgot to turn off the oven at home and she has no emotion on her face.  It plays out really empty, and looks silly.  Ugh.

I don't think it's even worth any more talk.  I'm stopping my blog right now.
All you need to know is that this version, sucks.  The acting was uninspired and lacked heart and feeling.
You don't care about the connections of the women in this film, and I don't think the actors could get the old version out of their heads, which made them just copy what they had seen before.

Rewatch the original or go see the play.
I have a new motto for Lifetime.....
Lifetime.....the channel of nothing special remakes.
0 out of 5 only because a negative is not possible on my scale.