A group of entrepreneurial high school seniors team up to take down a rigged college admissions system.. Remake of Thai Movie Bad Genius (2017). Early in the film, there’s a scene where Lynn calculates the cost of her commute to the private school she visited. The film showed a stack of public transportation tickets that are clearly marked with a SEPTA logo, which stands for Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority. SEPTA runs in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. Half a minute later, the film identifies the city Lynn and her father live in as Seattle.. References Roots (1977). Bad Genius (2024) is a remake of a 2017 Thai film of the same name. It uses the 2017 original as a recipe – down to the dialogue, the sets, the atmosphere, the characters’ ambitions, even the placement of the characters on set. It follows that recipe exactly, only veering slightly towards the end and changing a few minor plot elements from the original. Somehow, in doing so, it becomes a bland, lazy, and forced experience. To understand why, we need to talk a little about the original 2017 film and what made it so special. Bad Genius (2017) is a film that I loved so much that I’ve watched it more times than I care to admit; so yes, I’m biased. It has its flaws — it’s a bit heavy-handed at times with its sound effects and directing choices — but it lands as a successful and engaging heist film. It was a huge hit in its home country of Thailand and across Southeast Asia. However, it’s what this film did otherwise that drew me to it so much. The original 2017 film took on the difficult task of writing intelligent characters and putting them in a testing atmosphere that would otherwise be boring on film, while doing so is somehow incredibly suspenseful. It took four fantastic actors, who had little to no previous acting experience, and made them stars. Its production was through the roof, incorporating some great effects from the soundtrack to the on-screen display of the superimposed text used to get its message across. Lynn was *smart*. She came across as a genuinely intelligent, exceptionally talented young woman who had a loving father she cared about; testimonials from the original writers. Her relationships felt natural, and the cast ensured this in their acting and chemistry. Their methods and schemes were displayed throughout the film in a satisfying and enjoyable way. Her relationship with her father was emotional and well-acted on both ends. The story had pace and purpose, but most importantly it had SUSPENSION. And it did all of this filmed and produced in a country that is probably not considered a cinema powerhouse. Bad Genius (2024) has nothing or nothing of what it tries to copy. The remake somehow manages to take all the right ingredients – lighting, suspenseful music, the same plot points, the same characters – and turn it into a sloppy take on what feels like a bad dubbing of the original. It has no great moments. It has no charm. It has almost zero emotion. Lynn (2024) *acts* smart, but we don’t think the character is truly a genius. The classroom scenes *feel* like they’re trying to convey suspense, but they just come across as mostly nonsense. The supporting cast is lacking. There’s no suspense at all. All we have left with that good translation is a good father figure, thanks to the great Benedict Wong, and a good performance by Callina Liang, who tries to breathe some life into the bad acting. There’s no reason to watch this. Watch the original if you haven’t (or if you just want to watch it again) and thank me later.