I'm probably the only person who thought 'True Grit' was OK. Really, it did nothing drastically different from the original - which I thought was an average western. I hated how they cut Tom Chaney actually committing the murder, since it removed all my desire to see Mattie get her revenge. In the original, Tom Chaney is just a drunk idiot who isn't really that threatening - but we know its SUPPOSED to be that way since we see Tom Chaney murder Matties father and see that Chaney is drunk. I saw the 2010 version before the original, so I when I first saw Chaney I thought "Um, is this guy supposed to be evil? Because he looks and acts like a drunken fool. Are we supposed to want this guy dead? Because apart from when he hold a knife up to Mattie at the end, he's pretty harmless..."
The only thing it really changed was the ending. It felt like it was deliberately going against the whole 'ride off into the sunset thing', and it made me feel like I had wasted my time. I felt like the whole point was that Mattie's revenge would be satisfying, since we are clearly meant to back her. The ending would have worked if Mattie was more like the Mattie from the original - who I much preferred because she was way more vulnerable and actually seemed upset about her father. But it just left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. I like non-happy endings when they are justified, but this just felt wrong to me.
Maybe its just down to taste. Honestly, I think a re-make of True Grit was unnecessary. I found the original average and thought the only thing that could have been improved/updated was the Cinematography and the Acting - which it was. I will say that the acting in the 2010 version was brilliant all-round. But I thought the original True Grit was a bit of a weak film, and not good material to re-make since the only way you could drastically improve it was to completely change it. Its like if they did a re-make of 'Hang Em' High' - its a pretty good movie, but there is very little that can be improved.
Now, Quentin Tarantino is doing a Western based off-of 'Django' - which is an excellent source material, and I can see Tarantino doing a Django spin-off/sequel/prequel/whatever because 'Django' is one of the more violent westerns and seems within his style. In my opinion, that is how you adapt a Western into modern-day...