Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Sequelittis. Why???????????????????????????? Plus Inside Man 2: The Day of Reckoning

There are good sequels out there.

Terminator 2 (1991)
X-Men 2 (2003)
The Dark Knight (2008)

The Godfather 2 (1974)
The Empure Strikes Back (1980)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 (1991) - NOT!

But when I read over at Cinematical that Spike Lee is in talks to make an Inside Man 2 my blood curdled. How could someone so legit and credible such as Spike sell out for a quick buck?

This is nearly as atrocious as the upcoming sequel to Donnie Darko (2001), S.Darko (2009), but at least the original's director Richard Kelly had the common sense to stay the hell away from that one.

Inside Man (2006) is one of my favourite heist movies. Even more so I feel because it took me utterly by surprise. Mr. Lee was not well-known for commercial genre fare, so I wasn't sure how he would handle it, but he really did blow it out of the ball park. The script was tight, the direction suspenseful, and the acting superb.

[side note: that thought does get me excited for Miracle at St. Anna (2008) despite the trailer looking kinda dull and my inability to get worked up over war films]

Let me set the record straight.

THE STORY IS OVER SPIKE. FINNITO. SAYONARA. THERE IS NOTHING MORE TO TELL NO MATTER WHAT YOU, THE STUDIOS, DENZEL OR CLIVE BELIEVE.

What the heck are you guys gonna crap on about this time?
How your wives are doing? The "good o' days?"
Get a life people!


All those other great sequels I mentioned were continuations. There was more story to be told. They weren't cranked out for an extra buck, or so friends could hang out on set for a few months more (hello, Ocean's films).

Cinematical states that THR says the sequel will "continue the relationship between the two man characters but in a new high-tension situation."

What the hell??? Like Tango and Cash? Mel and Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon?

SPOILER ALERT! Clive was a good guy, and there was no reason for his character to perform another heist. PLUS Denzel pretty much let him get away at the end and did not seem perturbed at all because the good guys (in movie terms anyways) won and the bad guys lost.

My three requests for the day:

1) Please stop making crappy sequels.

2) Please stop WATCHING crappy sequels (hello Saw movies).

3) If you feel so compelled to make another one, please make it different. Not a different GENRE, mind you, (can you imagine Clive and Owen in a romantic screwball comedy both trying to bed Jodie Foster?) but a different story, location, REASON FOR EXISTING.

A totally necessary and refreshing sequel.
It did not repeat the themes of the first,
and created its own unique storyline and characters.


Thank you world for not listening. Can't wait for Spiderman 12 where Peter Parker is played by Zach Efron and Mary-Jane is Miley Cyrus.

And remakes, don't get me started (that's an entire post/s of its own...)

1 comment:

Will Ooi said...

I love good sequels (and even more: prequels, but that's another thing altogether) so it's such a shame that more often than not they not only come across as bad films in their own right, but tarnish the legacy of the original. No mention of Aliens? That was a great sequel! Well thank goodness they never came up with that touted sequel to Se7en (named, horribly, Ei8ht) where presumably characters get dragged out of retirement, or in the case of Rambo, sent back to Vietnam...