My darling wife tells me that I'm kind of a conspiracy theorist. Maybe I am.

I like movies like "The Manchurian Candidate," a remake of a 1962 flick with Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury. The 2004 version features Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, and Liev Schreiber.

The remake is weird, it has some gross-out moments, and the characters are really messed up. Washington plays Ben Marco, who is programmed to be a killer, but he fights his inner feelings (which are brought on by a computer chip maliciously implanted in his shoulder). Schreiber's character, Raymond Shaw, is only saved when Marco bites off a piece of Shaw's shoulder (which also contains a mind-altering computer chip). And Streep's character, Eleanor Shaw, is a power-hungry, crazed lunatic who gets what she deserves.

Somehow, this movie falls short.

I think it's the ending that didn't quite work. In the final scene, Marco is supposed to assassinate a presidential candidate, there was a huge, long build-up that didn't set right with me. The three main characters all made eye contact for about 10 minutes -- at least that's how long it felt -- while viewers were supposed to wonder when Marco, a sniper, would finally take his shot.

When a movie has that sort of anticlimactic ending, it ruins it for me. I didn't think it was bad -- the conspiracy was interesting enough. But it wasn't the best.

Maybe I'd like the original better.