Movie Rant 1

“Movie Rant 1: Sequels”

They always do better opening day and most of the time they piss me off. In the first installment of movie rants I intend to focus on two great movies, and why their sequel suck more then that blonde chick from fox news.
The first movie I would like to talk about is The Mummy (1999) staring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz. Some of you might be skeptical because I classified The Mummy as great, but bear with me. The Mummy takes place in Egypt, and boasts just enough special effects to make the movie come to life, reasonable comic relief, subtle sexual tensions, and a tasteful dose of mythology. As an added bonus it is paced at a rate that most people can tolerate. Pacing is very important if your making a movie that is meant to be accessible, and is something many people over look.
The Sequel to The Mummy, is the Mummy Returns (2001). At this point I am going to assume that you have seen The Mummy and you know the characters. If you don’t feel free to bug off to a synopsis or watch the movie. The Mummy Returns is bearable at best. It has two issues that make the movie the lessor of the first. First and for-most, the child actor. Im going to get it out in the open: I hate child actors. I have never seen a movie with a child actor that I enjoyed. Child actors are basically hollywood robots that don’t behave at all like children. In the case of the little prick who played Rick and Evy’s son, if you look close enough you will find a slot in the back of his head labeled ‘insert lines here.’ I think it would have been a better call on the writers part if they had Jonathan put on the bracelet and get kidnapped. I liked the actor that played Jonathan and I would have liked to see him play a role that isn’t comic relief and we can do away with the child actor. Everyone wins. The second issue is that the pre-filming leg work, casting, writing and so forth, was over all weaker then the prequel’s. The entire film feels rushed. Additionally, the movie didn’t contain any elements that made me care about the characters.
Number three in The Mummy series is called The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Just from the title, we know that there is something wrong. The movie takes place in China. There are no god damn mummies in China. The title mentions a tomb, but the characters really only spend 5 minutes of the film in a tomb, and its really just establishing the back story. Pharaohs in Egypt where Mummified, Emperors in China where not, so why are we dealing with an emperor in a movie called The Mummy? And what the hell is a dragon emperor? This is never explained, so I can only assume this it is a hook for the impressionable. If you think this oversight is bad, then you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is the worst movie in the series, by leaps and bounds. Lets start with the continuity errors. Rick and Evy’s son in The Mummy Returns has blonde hair and an English accent. In the Tomb of the Dragon Emperor he has brown hair and an American accent. I suppose its possible that after the events of The Mummy Returns Evy could have acquired a time machine, gone back in time to collect her pregnant self and then traveled to the future where science has mastered pre-implantation diagnostics and gene therapy and then bring her pregnant self back to the past to give birth to her genetically altered son. But Im not a film writer, what do I know? The biggest problem with this movie is that Rachel Weisz (Evy) isn’t in it. The chemistry between Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz is what made the original Mummy
work. Their contrasting acting styles and the varied approaches they took to their characters creates the odd couple feel. Earlier in the film this underscores the romance that would later occur. The worst part of the movie was the actress is who took up the roll of Evy. They replaced Rachel Weisz with an actress I can’t be bothered to research and who can’t take off her panties because she is afraid of bats. Im not just attacking her looks, she is also an awful actress. Sometimes I feel that Brendan Fraser is pulling her through the scenes. Speaking of bad acting, the rest of the cast was very disappointing. Basically, if you haven’t seen this movie, don’t.
Some of you may argue that the Mummy is a film series targeted at kids, and a film maker has to make some sacrifice of quality to make it accessible to pre-teens. While I acknowledge that the target age group is 13 year olds, its important to remember who your audience really is. Most of the people who watched and enjoyed The Mummy and The Mummy Returns where 13 years old when they came out, and are now grown adults. Grown adults, by the by, who have no interest in watching a fucking children's film! The film makers never make an attempt to explain the backstory or who the characters are and how they got there. The only people with any knowledge about the story are the aforementioned adults, so it makes sense to make the movie accessible to a wide age group.
The second film series I would like to talk about is The Matrix (1999). I would like to apologize to those of you who pretend The Matrix doesn’t have any sequels. Im not going to spend as much time on The Matrix because most of us already know how crappy the sequels are (however I will gladly rip apart The Matrix 2 and 3 if asked to). For those of you who don’t know let me explain it to you. The Matrix one: Sci-fi thriller and existentialism. The Matrix two: Sex and politics. The Matrix three: Explosions and CGI. Not that I don’t appreciate a good explosion, but it needs to mean something. The explosions of the death star in the original Star Wars, for example. It represents a new phase in the galactic struggle for freedom. The Matrix is a text book example of Sequel failure. It starts out as a great film, and get progressively less artistic and more superficial with each new movie. I liked seeing Keanu Reeves get beaten up, however. Even if it did look more like a cartoon that an actual fight seen.
Do you see what Im trying to get at here. A good movie isn’t good because of its name, it has to be judged by the merit of its content. Just because the original was good doesn’t mean you can add a few words to the title and expect the new movie to be groundbreaking. You can dye a turd purple, that doesn’t make it smell any better.