The 2010 film starts in a similar way to the 1985 TV series, before going in a very different direction that is much less interesting and not nearly so good as the TV series. The turning point is probably when Craven* finds his daughter's gun - in the original series this instantly added layers of intrigue to what had preceded it, but here, with the swapping of the UK setting for the USA, it's a case of 'so what?' This is America - possession of a firearm is absolutely not surprising.
There are no equivalent characters to Pendleton and Harcourt (or rather, there are supposed to be equivalents, but since they never interact with Craven they might as well not be), there is no equivalent to the tense computer hacking scene (I was looking forward to seeing how Hollywood would update this most dated of all the '80s elements, expecting them to balls it up or drown it in cliché, and I ended up disappointed that they didn't even try), and, most damningly of all, no infiltration of Northmoor by Craven and Jedburgh, by far the best section of the TV series - but by this point of the film it was telling a different story completely.
Gibson is no Bob Peck, but he's not a terrible actor either. The scenes where he struggle with grief for his daughter are done well, and if I didn't have the original to compare them to I might even have been somewhat impressed. But by the second half of the film he's in a more familiar 'out for revenge' mode like this is a Death Wish film, and I was reminded of Gibson's similar roles in Ransom (1996) and Payback (1999), which make this something of a familiar archetype for him.
Ray Winstone is Jedburgh, who has to be the token Brit just as the original Jedburgh was the token Yank. He may as well not be, his character has so little in common with the original. The way in which he is killed off at the end seems to be just because that was the fate of the original Jedburgh - but this one didn't even get irradiated (or even reach Northmoor, for that matter) so it was completely unnecessary except to get one more tick on the Edge of Darkness checklist.
The same is true of the Emma-as-ghost scenes, which in the TV series are crucial from a thematic point of view, tying the spiritual and environmental sides of the production together with the gritty police thriller. Here they are just because the TV series did it, and the (absolutely vital, IMO) environmental aspect of the story is completely absent. What remains is just the Craven-out-for-justice plotline, which robs this story of everything that made Edge of Darkness unique in the first place.
* Here needlessly renamed to 'Tom' - do they not have any Ronnies in America unless they are the president?
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