Just the Ticket #67: Sequel-itis
Men in Black 3, The Dark Knight Rises, Expendables 2
Today, we enter the world of worlds we have entered before. That's right, Ticketholders! It's time to look at movies that have either benefited or suffered from the effects of Sequel-itis. Do not take Sequel-itis if you are taking MAOI's, are pregnant or planning to become pregnant, are having trouble sleeping, or like your favorite movie just the way it is. Some side-effects of Sequel-itis may include blurred vision, headaches, financial loss, bouts of uncontrollable screaming, excessive gimmickry, deja vu, boredom or depression, blindness, deafness, night terrors, bladder infection, persistent catch phrases, vomiting, loss of appetite, diarrhea, constipation, impotence, anal leakage, and death.
Do not start or stop taking Sequel-itis without consulting your local movie critic, as it may conflict with other cinema-related medications, such as Franchizine, Remagine, Remakelin, Rebootrin, or Re-Hash.
To be Expendable is to not be considered worth keeping or maintaining, or to be capable of being sacrificed in order to accomplish a military objective. The second part of the definition applies to the characters portrayed by action movie legends Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, Jet Li, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, and new additions Chuck Norris, JCVD, and Liam Hemsworth (yes, that's Thor's baby brother, and yes, he does get Expended quite early).
The first part of the definition applies to the movie itself. If you liked The Expendables, you probably have a very small brain from smoking too much Re-Hash, and you will like Expendables 2 about half as much but still think it's pretty cool. For the rest of you, prepare (if you decide to watch it at all) for 1:40 hours of over-choreographed, bad 3D-packed shooting, exploding, crashing, fighting, and the aforementioned catchphrase cheese (Schwarzenegger is jokingly threatened with "Termination" on several occasions) in which Hemsworth is the movie's only heroic casualty.
Expendables 2 is like a Saturday Night Live action movie parody on steroids...one of those that feels like the writers ran out of material and stretched out a bit that doesn't work to fill time. Chuck Norris even swallows his pride by becoming a walking, talking Chuck Norris joke in one scene.
It's kind of nostalgic at times, but like the aging actors who demote this silver-screen schlockbuster to a bronze affair, The Expendables 2 begins to limp along as time passes, and interest gets lost as easily as a brain-fart-prone geezer walking from the living room to the kitchen. Now which review was I going to write next?
F+
Oh, yeah. I was going to review Men In Black 3. After the unmemorable textbook sequel MIB2, I was surprised in a bad way that a third installment was in the works, and when I saw that someone else was playing Agent K, I chocked it up to one of those direct-to-movie-type sequels with none of the returning cast that has nothing to do with the originals (not to mention the prospect of 3D made me throw up in my mouth a little). But as I read more about Men In Black 3, and about the effort Josh Brolin put into perfecting his Young Agent K role in particular, I was intrigued and decided to watch it.
And perfect the role he did, from Tommy Lee Jones' unpredictable speech patterns to his perpetual scrunchy-face. So why is Josh Brolin playing a young TLJ, you ask? Well, as it happens, an alien criminal named Boris "The Animal" ("It's...just...BORIS!!" he snarls on every occasion he's given) escapes from a prison on the moon with help from Nicole Scherzinger, who is still disgruntled about Simon Cowell firing her from The X Factor last year. He seeks out a mildly stoned alien whose father invented a time travel device, and travels back to 1969 to kill Agent K before he can wipe out Boris' Boglodite race. Boris succeeds in erasing K from the current timeline, but through some as-yet-undisclosed course of events, only Agent J (Will Smith, trying and failing for a second time to take lead as an MIB agent) can remember Agent K, and so must travel back in time by the same means to save Brolin's Agent K from assassination.
What ensues, in addition to a spot-on performance by Brolin, is far more than the usual Men In Black trickery. No longer does the duo shake down Tony Shaloub's head-regenerating weapons dealer. Grown up, but still not privy to things above his pay grade, J is no longer saddled with the small, high-kickback Noisy Cricket. Zeb (Rip Torn) has died. Thanks to time travel, as one agent tells J, "this is 1969, there are no Red Buttons" in MIB vehicles to make them go faster. It's almost as if this isn't a sequel at all, but some universe-expanding re-boot of a franchise doomed to failure upon taking its first step into franchisehood.
Moreover, Men In Black 3 is socially and historically conscious, taking into account (on a family-friendly level) the ramifications of J as a black man from modern times being trapped in the 60s, and even poking fun (as it did on a more superficial level in the previous two films) at how we as humans view the extremes of our society (eg: all supermodels, stoners, non-Americans, celebrities, etc. are really aliens). Sure, the guy who can see all futures happening at once has the potential to teleport directly to your last nerve, but who cares? Especially when the rest of the movie is so enjoyable. I particularly liked Bill Hader (best known for portraying Vincent Price and underground club correspondent Stefan on SNL) as Agent Andy Warhol ("I've run out of ideas, so I'm just painting soup cans!").
Even the 3D, which is so bad and obviously fake that you almost don't understand why they bothered--or didn't bother enough--also fits in so perfectly with returning director Barry Sonnenfeld's (Addams Family, Pushing Dasies) signature atmosphere of fantastic, campy, sci-fi-infused weirdness that it suddenly looks awful to the point of brilliance. I won't spoil anything else for you plotwise because the payoff is so good, so all I can do at this point is recommend that you find out for yourself why the "3" in Men in Black 3 is an exponent.
A+
This was the last Just the Ticket for quite a while. I have been putting Timedrop Publications on the back burner to work on my own zombie novel. This post has been sitting around in draft form for forever (try saying that even once before you pick up some sea shells at the seashore store, stupid). Stay tuned because I might return with more movie reviews at some point in the future. Over 15k hits, WOW. Thanks, loyal Pageviewers and Ticketholders!
The artist formerly known as SW@,
out.
Today, we enter the world of worlds we have entered before. That's right, Ticketholders! It's time to look at movies that have either benefited or suffered from the effects of Sequel-itis. Do not take Sequel-itis if you are taking MAOI's, are pregnant or planning to become pregnant, are having trouble sleeping, or like your favorite movie just the way it is. Some side-effects of Sequel-itis may include blurred vision, headaches, financial loss, bouts of uncontrollable screaming, excessive gimmickry, deja vu, boredom or depression, blindness, deafness, night terrors, bladder infection, persistent catch phrases, vomiting, loss of appetite, diarrhea, constipation, impotence, anal leakage, and death.
Do not start or stop taking Sequel-itis without consulting your local movie critic, as it may conflict with other cinema-related medications, such as Franchizine, Remagine, Remakelin, Rebootrin, or Re-Hash.
To be Expendable is to not be considered worth keeping or maintaining, or to be capable of being sacrificed in order to accomplish a military objective. The second part of the definition applies to the characters portrayed by action movie legends Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, Jet Li, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, and new additions Chuck Norris, JCVD, and Liam Hemsworth (yes, that's Thor's baby brother, and yes, he does get Expended quite early).
The first part of the definition applies to the movie itself. If you liked The Expendables, you probably have a very small brain from smoking too much Re-Hash, and you will like Expendables 2 about half as much but still think it's pretty cool. For the rest of you, prepare (if you decide to watch it at all) for 1:40 hours of over-choreographed, bad 3D-packed shooting, exploding, crashing, fighting, and the aforementioned catchphrase cheese (Schwarzenegger is jokingly threatened with "Termination" on several occasions) in which Hemsworth is the movie's only heroic casualty.
Expendables 2 is like a Saturday Night Live action movie parody on steroids...one of those that feels like the writers ran out of material and stretched out a bit that doesn't work to fill time. Chuck Norris even swallows his pride by becoming a walking, talking Chuck Norris joke in one scene.
It's kind of nostalgic at times, but like the aging actors who demote this silver-screen schlockbuster to a bronze affair, The Expendables 2 begins to limp along as time passes, and interest gets lost as easily as a brain-fart-prone geezer walking from the living room to the kitchen. Now which review was I going to write next?
F+
Oh, yeah. I was going to review Men In Black 3. After the unmemorable textbook sequel MIB2, I was surprised in a bad way that a third installment was in the works, and when I saw that someone else was playing Agent K, I chocked it up to one of those direct-to-movie-type sequels with none of the returning cast that has nothing to do with the originals (not to mention the prospect of 3D made me throw up in my mouth a little). But as I read more about Men In Black 3, and about the effort Josh Brolin put into perfecting his Young Agent K role in particular, I was intrigued and decided to watch it.
And perfect the role he did, from Tommy Lee Jones' unpredictable speech patterns to his perpetual scrunchy-face. So why is Josh Brolin playing a young TLJ, you ask? Well, as it happens, an alien criminal named Boris "The Animal" ("It's...just...BORIS!!" he snarls on every occasion he's given) escapes from a prison on the moon with help from Nicole Scherzinger, who is still disgruntled about Simon Cowell firing her from The X Factor last year. He seeks out a mildly stoned alien whose father invented a time travel device, and travels back to 1969 to kill Agent K before he can wipe out Boris' Boglodite race. Boris succeeds in erasing K from the current timeline, but through some as-yet-undisclosed course of events, only Agent J (Will Smith, trying and failing for a second time to take lead as an MIB agent) can remember Agent K, and so must travel back in time by the same means to save Brolin's Agent K from assassination.
What ensues, in addition to a spot-on performance by Brolin, is far more than the usual Men In Black trickery. No longer does the duo shake down Tony Shaloub's head-regenerating weapons dealer. Grown up, but still not privy to things above his pay grade, J is no longer saddled with the small, high-kickback Noisy Cricket. Zeb (Rip Torn) has died. Thanks to time travel, as one agent tells J, "this is 1969, there are no Red Buttons" in MIB vehicles to make them go faster. It's almost as if this isn't a sequel at all, but some universe-expanding re-boot of a franchise doomed to failure upon taking its first step into franchisehood.
Moreover, Men In Black 3 is socially and historically conscious, taking into account (on a family-friendly level) the ramifications of J as a black man from modern times being trapped in the 60s, and even poking fun (as it did on a more superficial level in the previous two films) at how we as humans view the extremes of our society (eg: all supermodels, stoners, non-Americans, celebrities, etc. are really aliens). Sure, the guy who can see all futures happening at once has the potential to teleport directly to your last nerve, but who cares? Especially when the rest of the movie is so enjoyable. I particularly liked Bill Hader (best known for portraying Vincent Price and underground club correspondent Stefan on SNL) as Agent Andy Warhol ("I've run out of ideas, so I'm just painting soup cans!").
Even the 3D, which is so bad and obviously fake that you almost don't understand why they bothered--or didn't bother enough--also fits in so perfectly with returning director Barry Sonnenfeld's (Addams Family, Pushing Dasies) signature atmosphere of fantastic, campy, sci-fi-infused weirdness that it suddenly looks awful to the point of brilliance. I won't spoil anything else for you plotwise because the payoff is so good, so all I can do at this point is recommend that you find out for yourself why the "3" in Men in Black 3 is an exponent.
A+
This was the last Just the Ticket for quite a while. I have been putting Timedrop Publications on the back burner to work on my own zombie novel. This post has been sitting around in draft form for forever (try saying that even once before you pick up some sea shells at the seashore store, stupid). Stay tuned because I might return with more movie reviews at some point in the future. Over 15k hits, WOW. Thanks, loyal Pageviewers and Ticketholders!
The artist formerly known as SW@,
out.
Comments
Post a Comment