REVIEWED
Sloppy seconds... No matter how forgiving you are with Spike Lee's revisionist take on Bill Gunn's 1973 artsy blaxploitation/horror 'Ganja & Hess', you can't shake off the fact that the finished result feels lacking. Basic story is still the same Hess is stabbed by an ancient atifact. And left with an addiction for blood and an eternity of loneliness to look forward to. Until he meets Ganja. Only after he marries and changes her to be like him, Hess understands destroying her innocence destroyed her worth.
Its hard to pinpoint exactly why this crowdfunded remake fails, which it ultimately does. It features a solid young cast, Stephen Tyrone Williams is a seriously cool lead, and it was fun seeing 'Mr. Robots' Rami Malek comically playing the butler. Looks and sounds amazing, thumbs up to the Red Hook Baptist Church interlude (I love raw moments in film like that). I guess its failure could have been that the concept felt outdated and Lee's attempt to modernize it was just too serious, even though I did laugh out loud at the "black kids need to be invincible in this day and age" line. Anyhow if nothing else its an enjoyable mess.
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