The Prisoner (2009) Review: A Pointless, Soulless Imitation To call this 2009 miniseries a remake of Patrick McGoohan's legendary 1967 masterpiece is an insult. It is not a reimagining; it is a defacement. Where the original was a brilliant, surreal, and fiercely individualistic critique of Cold War paranoia and societal control, this version is a tepid, confused, and utterly boring soap opera that completely misses the point.
A Hollow Village, a Hollow Plot
The core premise remains: a man, known only as Six (Jim Caviezel), wakes up in a bizarre, isolated community called The Village with no memory of how he got there, searching for a way to escape the clutches of a manipulative authority figure, Two (Ian McKellen).
And that is where all similarities end. The original's enigmatic, psychological terror is replaced with a plodding, nonsensical mystery box that fails to deliver a single satisfying payoff. The profound philosophical questions—"Who is Number One?" and "Who is the prisoner, who is the jailer?"—are reduced to a literal, laughably simplistic family drama. The revelation of the Village's purpose and its connection to our world is not mind-expanding; it's a contrived and underwhelming mess that feels like the writers wrote themselves into a corner.
A Catatonic Hero and a Wasted Villain
Jim Caviezel's performance as Six is tragically miscast. He spends the entire miniseries with a single expression of constipated bewilderment, devoid of the fiery rebellion, cunning, and raw charisma that defined McGoohan's Number Six. His struggle feels passive, not revolutionary.
The one glimmer of potential, Ian McKellen, is shackled to a woefully misguided script. His Number Two is given a mundane, domestic backstory that drains all menace and mystery from the character. Instead of a chilling, ever-changing adversary representing a faceless system, we get a grumpy suburban dad with administrative duties. It is a catastrophic miscalculation that neuters the central conflict.
The Ultimate Sin: It's Boring
The original The Prisoner was challenging, bizarre, and often infuriating, but it was never, ever boring. It was a televisual hand-grenade. This 2009 version is a sedative. The pacing is glacial, the "twists" are predictable or nonsensical, and the final "revelation" is an insult to the audience's intelligence and a spit in the face of the source material.
The Verdict
2 out of 10 - An Abomination
This series earns a single point for its handsome cinematography and another for Ian McKellen's valiant, but doomed, effort to inject gravitas into the drivel he was given.
Watch this if: You need a cure for insomnia and have no knowledge of the 1967 series.
For everyone else: Do not waste a single minute of your life on this travesty. The only acceptable way to experience The Prisoner is to watch the original, a show that was, and remains, lightyears ahead of this pointless, soulless imitation. This isn't just a bad remake; it's proof that some classics are utterly untouchable.
