Initially, one may wonder why anyone would bother remaking a film that was already as close to perfect as movies get. But it actually makes more sense to update The Manchurian Candidate than, say, Psycho or King Kong (sorry Mr. Jackson), for a couple of reasons. First, though the original is justifiably regarded as an all-time classic cold war thriller, it wasn't been widely seen for over two decades until it was given a proper rerelease in 1987 (Frank Sinatra, who starred in the original and owned the rights to the story, pulled it from release after JFK's assassination); it never had the chance to become a part of our pop culture the way other movies have. Second, and perhaps more importantly, author Richard Condon's ideas and themes may be even more relevant today than they were when he wrote the novel on which the original is based; the cold war may be over, but the fear of losing control of one's own actions in an increasingly high-tech, corporate-manipulated political structure is the stuff of great movie fodder. Hence, this remake takes liberties with the original source material (probably necessary in order to make the film relevant to modern audiences), while still trying to retain the essence of what the story is about. This slick, high-tech remake is not in the same league as the original, sort of falling apart in a third act that begins to stretch credibility a bit too far, it is still fairly successful at addressing our fears of being manipulated by a malevolent, powerful (and largely unseen) entity.