Some Notes on Sequels

Ah, sequels. The bastard children of good movies, or maybe just movies that made good money. In any case, these offspring generally have a harder time making good for themselves, since they have to contend with the (mostly) favorable opinions audiences had of the original.

Sometimes, against all the odds, they succeed. The Empire Strikes Back, The Indiana Jones movies, the Back to the Future flicks, Blade II, X2, Spider-Man 2. The Spy Kids were still pretty entertaining. And in Arty-Farty Land, Before Sunset was lovely and enhanced the experience of Before Sunrise.

But oftentimes they fall flat on their faces. And audiences look at them on the ground, point and laugh, and for good measure, spit on their backs before walking away.

For these two recent sequels, I guess you'll have to decide if you want to be that cruel. I'm a nice guy, and pretty forgiving, so I'll stop short of the spitting.

Things I Loved About Ocean's Twelve

Catherine Zeta-Jones

The "Lost in Translation" scene at the pub

The tongue-in-cheek, self-referential Julia Roberts affair

The little Chinese guy muttering to himself in Chinese all the time

An example of his (probably improvised) muttering:

"I don't get it, when my parents gave birth to me, I was normal. There's nothing wrong with me. It's just these American girls, they're too damn tall."

Hilarious stuff.

Um, that's about it. Yeah, it was pretty blah, especially since Eleven was so slick and choke-full of Cool. Somehow in Eleven everyone seemed to have a personality, whereas in Twelve they all seem to be playing caricatures that kind of blend into one another after awhile.

Things I Learnt From Blade: Trinity

Wesley Snipes and Kris Kristofferson are among that rare breed of actors who can somehow manage to emote every single line, whatever the context may be, in exactly the same way. Kristofferson does it in "Relaxed Redneck" mode, while Snipes is more "Guy With Stick Up His Ass".

Jessica Biel is hot. Scratch that, I knew that before I saw the movie. And the shower scene was so completely gratuitous, you have to love it.

Macs and iPods are apparently must-haves for the new breed of vampire slayer.

I want the earphones Jessica Biel has. Any earphones that can stay in place while she somersaults, high-kicks, slashes and stabs are worth their weight in gold.

It's actually highly amusing to see someone (Ryan Reynolds) try their damnedest to play a character from a Kevin Smith movie, and fail spectacularly at it.

Parker Posey has so much fun being the Evil Bitch, she makes everyone happy too. It's infectious.

Amazingly, a 119 minute movie can feel shorter than a 95 minute one (Kung Fu Hustle), even though dialogue is probably worse, and the action not as cool. You're just so busy laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of it you don't even notice the time passing.

Whoever wrote the dialogue is either atrociously bad or borderline brilliant. It really doesn't matter which, though.

Dracula is alarmingly metrosexual.