Remakes are always crappy, depressing and unnecessary (except for the remake of Solaris, which I love).

Remember this classic?

Of course you do. It’s still cited as one of the best ads of the past decade or two, and rightly so.

Sony seems to agree, and have now bestowed upon us this too-similar-to-be-an-accident, much worse retread:

It’s funny, isn’t it? Even when it’s quite clear what the charm of Double Life is (its lack of supersized budget, its intrigue, its strange and wonderful cast of characters etc.), the people responsible for the remake have decided to jettison every single aspect of what made it good in favour of the kind of tiresome shite you’ll forget even as you’re watching it.

I’ve had many, many briefs since Double Life that have asked for a ‘Double Life’ (by that I think the client and account dudes mean that they want to have the kind of massive success they don’t have the balls to make) but never one that asked for the Double Life.

It’s a peculiar kind of laziness that again shows the client side of the industry just what we’re made of: ‘Stand on the shoulders of giants? Hmmm… That’s a bit of an ask. How about we look at what the giants did and just urinate on it while lying in a hammock?’

Sold.