I have a complicated history with the cult film The Rocky Horror Picture Show, I have acted as Janet Weiss in two productions of it and have probably seem the film about fifty times because of that, but I appreciate it for what it is. It’s a unique film that perfectly encapsulates its time period, and honestly, can never be redone due to the utter absurdity of plot and skill of original actors. That’s why, when I heard there was going to be a remake, I was afraid. Remakes of older movies that try to pull off a modern twist never turn out well – just look at Fame. The original was fantastic, but the remake was completely awful. Of course, I was going to give the Rocky Horror remake a fair chance with an open mind, and I was excited to watch it, but unfortunately my fears were confirmed.

Let’s just start with the first thing that raised some flags – the acting. Victoria Justice played Janet Weiss and Ryan McCartan played Brad Majors, and just, wow. That was not good. To put it simply, they acted as if they were in a parody. But this was not a parody, it was a remake. They were constantly over the top the whole time, whereas no one else was, which made them look like bad actors, even if they aren’t. I have never seen McCartan before, and I know of Justice’s Nickelodeon past, but to be honest, I don’t expect them to get work any time soon. I really can’t fathom whose fault this was, if they just really wanted to make their characters stupid, or the director, Kenny Ortega, didn’t care that there was no consistent acting amongst the cast, but it was pretty hard to watch. Here’s the thing, as an actor, it is your job to make a human, not play a one-dimensional character. None of the acting was super strong in the making-an-actual-believable-human department, but I don’t think we can blame any one person for this. I think it just comes from trying to remake something without the understanding of what made it amazing in the first place.

Now, as a remake, I obviously expected there were going to be some changes, and I was mostly happy with how they tried to adapt it. The music changes were weird at first, but I accepted how they were redone. I enjoyed the opening, putting the scene in a movie theater, but there are some things I just couldn’t accept. Take for instance the “Time Warp” scene. Listen, if you’re going to subtitle the movie “Let’s Do the Time Warp Again” you might actually want to do the actual time warp dance in the film. I’m sure people have different opinions on this, but the time warp is one of the essential staples of the movie, you can’t just not do it. The “Touch-A” scene was also drastically changed, but I suppose this was more because this remake was on Fox, not HBO, but at the same time, Rocky and Janet jumped around on a bed in what is supposed to be a sexually charged scene. It just made the whole thing laughable, and not in a good way. And in more disappointments, the final scene, the “Floor Show” scene lost any essence of what made it amazing in the original. Firstly, the costumes and makeup. Everyone looks pristine and they’re wearing beautiful costumes – no. They’re all supposed to be hot messes, especially Dr. Frank, but instead Laverne Cox had three costume changes and upheld a level of grace the whole time; that’s not who Frank is.

Let’s talk about Laverne Cox. I assumed her rendition of Frank would be great, I assumed she could give a good performance based off her work in Orange is the New Black, but honestly her whole performance fell flat. Never mind seeing any reminiscent of Frank, I didn’t see a human with emotions. It’s as if she just read the lines and smiled. I mean, that kind of is what she did. She basically just looked beautiful and had about a million costume changes and that was it. There honestly wasn’t even that much of sexual prowess that Frank is known for. And who knows, maybe this is just showing a flaw in the original writing and the awesome skill of Tim Curry, but something was definitely amiss. Perhaps it was the mixing of acting, or the fact that Frank is supposed to be a hot mess, but Cox was far away from that. There was also hardly any heartbreak from her, nothing. During the floor show, I saw a little crack into emotion from her, but then it was gone, and that is the moment where Frank is full of emotions. Frank is singing about wanting to be accepted and wanting to go home, and his makeup is running and his corset is coming undone, and everyone around him is completely swept into his world, but instead we got three costume changes and a never ending smile. You have to wonder if Cox ever actually watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Maybe I’m biased. Maybe I was expecting too much. There were some parts I enjoyed. Columbia, Eddie, and Riff Raff sold their performances pretty well, but that still doesn’t really add up to much when you consider the entire state of the movie. It just goes to show, people shouldn’t do remakes.