That Darn Cat (1965)
vs.
That Darn Cat (1997)
Shared Plot: A teenage girl discovers that her pet cat is the only witness to a kidnapping and enlists the aid of a hapless FBI agent to follow the animal around town until it leads them to the criminals.
THE GOOD
There's plenty of good, old-fashioned pie-in-the-face slapstick that's sure to make kids laugh.
THE BAD
Those funny scenes are few and far between, and at 116 minutes, the pacing is deadly for today's preteen audiences.
THE UGLY
The kidnappers, who get pretty rough with their bank-secretary hostage, are scary (and not fun scary, like Cruella DeVil or Captain Hook—scary scary).
WHAT THEY CHANGED
Hayley Mills's ever-perky Pollyanna teen is replaced with Christina Ricci's black-wearing nihilist teen, which fills the beginning of the film with unrelenting snarkiness (although her experience in the story brightens the character's outlook by the end). And the addition of a genuine mystery—we don't know which of the odd neighbors is the kidnapper this time—adds a new layer to the plot.
AND THE WINNER IS...
To be honest, neither is all that fantastic, but the edge has to go to the faster-paced, higher-energy remake.
Next Page: The Parent Trap (1961) vs. The Parent Trap (1998)
