Magnum PI reboot doubles down on Ferraris, lacks moustaches
The first trailer for the rebooted Magnum PI show has been released and there is plenty of Fezza carnage. Maybe too much, in fact.
It’s unclear whether Thomas Magnum’s Ferrari 308GTS will return in a regular “star car” role in the new series, but one is certainly dispensed with in the trailer, as is a Ferrari 458. They’re both on the receiving end of gunfire and maliciously driven “baddie” vehicles.
Directed by Fast and the Furious auto-auteur Justin Lin, the new show has upped the pace and the gunfire, looking like a cross between the aforementioned Vin Diesel-saturated series and the big screen Mission: Impossible franchise. There’s a connection with the 1980s series though: Donald P. Bellisario — the creator of the wise-cracking gardener/ security man/private investigator — gets a writing credit.
Magnum is played by Suicide Squad’s Jay Hernandez (slight moustache, but not a patch on Tom Selleck’s original hairy slug), while Brit actress Pertida Weeks plays a — gasp! — female Higgins.
The familiar sidekick characters of Rick and T.C return, played by youthful lookalikes.
And even the great-great-great grandsons of Zeus and Apollo feature, along with plenty of episodic evil-doers Magnum will be forced to tussle with in order to bring justice to the weak and (ideally) beautiful.
Does the show even need to be remade? Probably not. The original still holds up on a comfortfood nostalgia level, albeit with the unavoidable lingering pastel backdrop of 1980s television production indelibly in place (needlessly long establishing shots, awful incidental music).
And they’d never have sacrificed the Ferrari 308GTS for the sake of a good plot twist back in the day.
We’ll give the 2018 version of Magnum PI a look for curiosity’s sake, but if the destruction of those two Ferraris in the trailer is in order to make way for a contracted Hyundai product placement deal, we’ll never watch another frame.