Movie Review - Jacob's Ladder (2019)

This film is a remake of the 1990 film of the same name. It's not the first time the main actor in it has done a remake of a film from 30 years ago. This one isn't as good because I don't think the screenplay by Jeff Buhler and Sarah Thorpe understands what made the original film so compelling and even purposefully confusing. It tries to replicate, while at the same time subvert, the superficial things about the original film, which made it compelling, but without a fundamental understanding of the original, then what this film is doing here only fails to be interesting or engaging. It would be okay if how Buhler and Thorpe diverge from the original were developed well enough. Unfortunately, Buhler and Thorpe's ideas can't or aren't developed well enough because their script is too focused on replicating scenes or moments from the original.

The fundamental flaw about this remake is that it basically takes what was a metaphor in the original and makes it literal. Again, this would be okay, but the film doesn't develop this divergence well enough. I can't talk about how this film diverges from the original without spoilers. Therefore, I will go into spoilers for both the 1990 version and this current version. Suffice to say that this film isn't scary, inventive like the original or satisfying in its conclusion.

Michael Ealy (Think Like a Man and Barbershop) stars as Jacob Singer, a trauma surgeon, working at the VA hospital in Atlanta. He was also a trauma surgeon in the Middle East when one day, an injured soldier is brought in. Jacob tries to save the soldier but the soldier dies. He then realizes that the soldier is his brother. After that, Jacob ended up marrying his brother's girlfriend and having a baby with her. Months after the baby's birth, a man approaches Jacob outside the hospital and tells him that his brother is alive. The man takes Jacob into the subway and tunnels under Atlanta where homeless people stay. Among the homeless is Jacob's brother who is now a drug addict. Jacob tries to figure out what happened to his brother, as well as figure out who is trying to kill him because men in black hoodies have been chasing him.

In the original film, Jacob never had a brother. The brother is a new invention for this film. This is purposefully done to change what the reveal is at the end. This film came out nine years before M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense (1999), a film that would forever define the idea of dramatic twists that undermine a person's perception of the entire film. Yet, the original Jacob's Ladder accomplished that kind of twist first. Obviously, Buhler and Thorpe feel the need to replicate that twist here, but they don't make it exactly the same as in the 1990 flick. They subvert it slightly.

How they subvert is thus. In the 1990 version, Jacob believes that he and other soldiers have been the subject of a military experiment. The twist at the end is that there was no experiment. It was all a fantasy in his head. In this version, Jacob starts to believe in a similar military experiment and conspiracy. The twist at the end here is that he was right. There actually was a secret experiment and deadly conspiracy happening. Yet, the film still feels the need to have a big reveal that Jacob is experiencing a fantasy in his head, otherwise all the religious and demonic imagery doesn't make sense and they use the whole brother angle to do it, which only frustrates what we see and doesn't really enlighten us about anything.

Jesse Williams (Grey's Anatomy) co-stars as Isaac Singer, the brother to Jacob. He was also in the marines. He was a soldier who was injured in the Middle East on some battlefield. He supposedly died but then he miraculously appears in Atlanta among the homeless as a drug addict. His sudden appearance is suspicious and the biggest tell of this whole film. What's also a big tell is the fact that nobody treats Isaac's so-called resurrection as the miracle it would be. Isaac would or should be the lead story on the local and national and international news. Why it's so low-key a thing is the most ridiculous part.

Director David M. Rosenthal is working from a flawed script, but even still, he doesn't make the so-called horror here stand-out or pop at all. The original film took inspirations from religious texts and experimental films to craft a terrifying vision. Rosenthal doesn't seem to take inspiration from anything to craft any kind of unique vision. He's simply cribbing from the 1990 version but only in a watered-down fashion. It's just dull. Lastly, I wrote about Ealy's previous film The Intruder, which came out over the summer. That film also featured the actor Joseph Sikora (Power). I really enjoy Sikora and like in The Intruder, Sikora's talent is wasted or vastly underutilized here. He should have been in it more. Guy Burnet (Counterpart and Hand of God) is another talent that is wasted or underutilized here.

Rated R for language, some violence, sexuality and drug content.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 29 mins.

Available on DVD and VOD.