JULIE ONI
Staff Writer
No greater cereal exists than Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds. It’s on a different, completely different, playing field from the original.
Why can’t it be like this with movies? Why can’t sequels and remakes come in bright blue boxes, better than the butter-yellow of the original? It’s the same brand; we should expect just as much flavor, should we not?
The titles alone of recent reels answer this question with an immediate negative.
“Big Momma’s House 2,” a sequel to the successful 2000 film starring Martin Lawrence as an FBI agent who disguises himself as an old lady, stars Lawrence in the same role, just on a different assignment.
This time, Malcolm Turner (Lawrence’s character) goes undercover in order to kill the murderer of his ex- partner.
It’s so less interesting than the situations that arrived from the difficulty of Turner becoming Big Momma to protect the beautiful Sherry (played by Nia Long). That story was funny but shouldn’t be played out any further. We’ve already seen Lawrence in way too many cop roles. “Boys in the Hood,” “Blue Streak,” and “National Security” were enough.
“The Pink Panther,” a remake of the 1963 crime comedy, features Steve Martin and Kevin Kline in lead roles. These are two successful actors; why should they sink to become substitutes?
“Curious George” and “Pride and Prejudice” are both adaptations (the latter of which has already been adapted with the same title), and “Cheaper by the Dozen 2” and “Final Destination 3” are promptly-named sequels. Simply reading these titles has placed barbed wires around just about every theater in my mind for the next several weeks. No new, intriguing big-screeners catch my eye.
Most films, unless they are meant to be part of a series like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, are complete stories with a beginning, middle and end. Continuing a completed narrative becomes tricky and results in a film that seems forced.
The popular notion is that unique ideas just don’t exist anymore. Film has been around for sometime now. Even our parents grew up watching movies, and they’re old. They didn’t have to sit through sequel after sequel every time they sat in front of a screen. But they also didn’t have the entertainment outlets we have today.
In a 2002 interview for USA Today, Robert Thompson, Professor of Media and Culture at Syracuse University, said that America has “a technology base that is absorbing culture, ideas, bons mots, faster than they can be produced.”
In other words, while original stories are being created, there are so many media outlets that obtaining enough footage to fill every hour of the day is simply impossible. Consider the fact that it takes years to create just one film, while TV, DVD and theaters are accessible nearly 24/7.
Thompson called the sequel-solution a re-ordering of resources. “When you’ve worn out new ideas,” he said, “you have to recycle.”
From this perspective, maybe Martin Lawrence staking out his partner’s slayer shouldn’t be seen as a sign that the film industry is out of story ideas. Maybe it’s been sent to us as a savior from the boredom that would become of having no movies in the theater whatsoever.
Sequels and remakes, then, are keeping America’s entertainment section from becoming a dehydrated desert.
01-26-2006
