Sequel Bashing--Catch the Fever!

Sequels. Love them. Hate them. Leave them. Take them.

Lately it seems that everyone is just bashing them. Can't a sequel get a lil' love? After reading reviews of sequels the last few months, I'd have to answer with a resounding "NO!" it's a harsh world out there for those litty bitty sequels. They always are getting compared to their older siblings and that's just not fair. We don't do that with children anymore--or at least we're not supposed to! I don't do it with my cats--except when I'm throwing them. Can't a movie just be judged for itself, for it's own intrinsic value? I guess not.

"Spiderman 3" is admittedly no "Spiderman 2" but then again, thankfully, it's no "Spiderman I" which may have been the worst "first" I've ever seen.

"Pirates 3" (I'm not writing all of the additional titles out because, well, I'm lazy) was my favorite of the three. I loved it. It was a whale of an action movie. Was it better than the other two? I dunno. Better? Hard to say. My fiancee can't really answer it because she is madly in love with John Depp and considers "Private Resort" to be a classic and is pretty sure that "Platoon" is in fact, a John Depp movie. All the other soldiers were just window dressing as far as she's concerned.

"Shrek 3" came out a bit ago and the poor ogre has been having an...ogre of a time of it in the press. Judging from the reviews you'd think that "Shrek 3" was some kind of cosmic assault against our collective consciousness. I thought it was a kid's movie. One review said there were, of all things, fart jokes in it! To paraphrase a line from Casablanca, "FART JOKES! FART JOKES IN A KID'S MOVIE?! I'm shocked!" Were the critics thinking Bill Shakespeare was writing the screenplay? Does a fart by any other ogre not smell as good?

I haven't seen "Shrek 3" yet. The reviews were just too bad. Okay, that's not true. I haven't seen it because I have no money. I read reviews for the fun of it and as a general rule of thumb don't read them until after I've seen a movie--especially if it's a movie I am anxious to see. I've just read too many reviews which have attempted to ruin a movie for me. If I go in expecting to see a bad movie I am such a weak brained individual that that's just what I 'll see. If the review is for a movie I know I'll never see I'll read it because I'm funny that way. If it's a movie I don't really care about I'll read it because I won't really care it the writer dumps on it. If it's a movie I don't want to see but my fiancee wants to see, I'll definitely read it and then tell her how awful the critics think it is--this strategy has saved me many a bad date. Use it if ye like.

What I'm concerned about is not really that poor Shrek and Fiona got hammered by the critics, they're ogres and have been through much worse. What bothers me is that critics are getting progressively meaner and meaner and their reviews are getting leaner and leaner. A few words to describe the movie and the stars and then it's rip city! Then it's expository writing time! Do we need to know if the existential questions involved in "Spiderman 3" are ripe with the transgressions of typical metaphysical questioning? Probably not. If it's not as good as "Spiderman 2" then just make a note of it. "Spiderman 2" was considered by many (most notably, Roger Ebert) to be the best superhero movie ever made so if "3" isn't as good--is that a shock to anybody? But you know what? I loved comic books when I was growing up and as a fan of comics I absolutely loved "Spiderman 3." Sure, it didn't all work so well, yeah, Gwen is more of a babe than M.J. so Peter Parker and Spiderman should have dumped the one and stayed with the other and the "New Green Goblin" had a costume which looked like it came out of the Ax Man surplus store but who cares?! It's a movie about a guy who crawls up buildings and swings on webs like a spider. Could we have a little room just for entertainment? The action sequences were a lot of fun. Maybe that's not a grandiose achievement (or critique for that matter) but it's a summer movie. I go to summer movies to be entertained. Here in Minnesota I have all winter (about eight months of it) to watch serious, artsy movies and contemplate the universe while it's fifty degrees below zero outside. In the summer, well, a good action movie at the drive-in is a beautiful thing.

"Pirates 3" may be convoluted in some areas with all the characters switching sides as fast as they can but my fiancee pointed out that they've been doing that for the entire series so I am not entirely sure it's right to criticize it now. It has tremendous action scenes, is flippin' hilarious, and it has KEITH RICHARDS IN IT! Do you want to know how good I thought it was? I have been waiting to see Keith's cameo for about two years now. And guess what? I was so engrossed in the movie that I completely forgot to watch for it and it wasn't until he had been on the screen for two minutes that I realized it was him! Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. My fiancee too. My brother too. His wife too. And we all love Keith and were waiting for him the entire movie and we all forgot about it!

Why am I so cranky about this? Well, like I said, I'm funny with the way I like to read reviews as a hobby. I would love to write a book reviewing the reviewers (Greil Marcus watch out!). I love The Onion and I have been reading it for years, but their critics--they have about forty of them--are taking themselves so seriously that it's time that someone come up with a paper/website parodying The Onion and it's staff with a headline with something along the lines of "Former Hilarious Fake Madison Newspaper Which Sold Out and Moved to New York City Years Ago Now Takes Itself So Seriously That--In Between Its FIFTY PAGES OF VERY REAL ADVERTISEMENTS--It Must Trash Kiddie Movies In A Vainglorious Attempt to Justify Its Lack of Any Real Humor." Or something like that. Hey! They're sequels. In the entire history of humanity there have only been two sequels which surpassed the original--The New Testament and "The Godfather II."

And not necessarily in that order.