The Y2K Get Carter remake of the great 1971 film of the same name is puzzling to me. First of all, why anyone would want to remake a great film is beyond me. Second of all, if one is going to remake a great film (assuming one is trying make another great film to go along side of it) they might as well actually remake it well! But no, the producers go and get a director who never made a good film previously to this stint on the resurrected Get Carter (and think of a living dead sort-of resurrection), Stephen T. Kay. Way to go. Kay brings to the film a sort of FX-TV look, complete with a neo-MTV soundtrack. Yeah, put that in your pipe and smoke it.... <br /><br />Then they get writer David McKenna to write the screenplay. McKenna had the Oscar-nominated American History X under his belt at that point (though the Oscar-nom went to actor Edward Norton), but he followed up with the critically-panned Body Shots. One would think that would have been a red flag, but hey, luckily I do not have to defend the choice. So under McKenna's pen we go from a brutal crime flick about one man's darkness in the 1971 film to a crime flick still, but now Carter is the Angel of Justice or something and far less dimensional. On top of that, the story is changed so we have a different ending that is FAR less powerful than that of the original Get Carter. The dialogue gets murdered as well. For example, we go from Caine's Carter's intimidating "like p**s-holes in the snow" description of Eric's eyes to Stallone's Carter's laughable "like cat-p**s in the snow" description of Cyrus' (whoever that is) eyes. "Cat-p**s"? are you freakin' kidding me? How did we get to "cat-p**s"? <br /><br />Then we get to the cast which, in my opinion, is hit-or-miss. But hey, at least we have a couple of hits. Miranda Richardson does well in her supporting role as Gloria Carter, Jack's sister in law; Rachael Leigh Cook also does a good job in her supporting role as Doreen Carter, Jack's niece; and I really think that Sylvester Stallone did the best job he could with the material as Jack Carter. Sure, he is no Caine, but who is? Stallone relatively holds his own throughout the film despite being surrounded by a mostly horrid cast. John C. McGinley, Alan Cumming, and Mickey Rourke are all painfully bad. You know the feeling you get when an actor is so bad you feel embarrassed for them? These three supporting performances in Get Carter are perfect examples of this! <br /><br />Then we have Michael Caine - of whom I honestly cannot decide whether or not gives a good performance because I cannot get over what a backstabbing Judas he is for being apart of this film in the first place! Caine has admitted that he does a lot of films just for the cash, and this has got to be one of those jobs, it just has to be! <br /><br />Run, don't walk, to the great original 1971 Get Carter film instead of this atrocity.