Please, brace yourselves. I almost had a tear in my eye when I read the next two stories, so you have been warned. Everything horrible and materialistic and unoriginal in Hollywood has now come true, and these stories are just another indicator that Hollywood will flush out anything for a buck.
First up, the horror known as Mission: Impossible 3 is now suddenly seen as "hot", what with JJ Abrams's star now on a huge rise because of the success of Star Trek (he directed both movies). In MI3 Tom played a married to Michelle Monaghan Ethan Hunt who has to rescue his former protege (Keri Russell) and face the ultimate bad guy (Philip Seymour Hoffman in another horribly miscast role). They threw so much in that plot that I thought it was physically impossible to construct another because they had literally done everything. When you're watching the movie, at one point you think it's done but then you realize you still have another 45 minutes to go and you just want to die. That's not good foreshadowing for MI4. Tom has decided he wants JJ back as a producer (a small relief) and that they are already working on the plot/script. Unless John Woo is directing (MI2 was explosive and loving it) you can count me out of going anywhere near theaters when this is released.
Next, do you remember that movie franchise that everyone loved and then George Lucas came in and just had to make a sequel to "continue the story" (make more money)? No, I'm not talking about Star Wars, I'm talking about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the movie so sh*tty it created a new term in the cultural lexicon "nuking the fridge." Similar to TV's "jumping the shark", "nuking the fridge" happens when a movie has passed all believability and really doesn't care anymore. At one point in IJ4 Indiana stumbles upon a nuclear test site and hides in a fridge as a bomb is detonated less than 1000 feet away. After it has exploded he even exits the fridge to create a cool shot filled with radiation poisoning. Besides the fact that the movie just seemed like a ploy to make even more money by introducing Shia LaBeouf as his son (who can't act), it wasted the fans' glorious memories of the three films that came before it, and somehow made Cate Blanchett look like a bad actress (nearly impossible). Not only that, but the "surprise" at the end, where the thing they've been searching for the whole time is revealed, actually turns out to be real aliens, and the "treasure" that Indy has spent the last 90 minutes searching for is knowledge. KNOWLEDGE. Lucas clearly has no respect for movie audiences anymore and Spielberg and Ford must have been, respectively, so far up Lucas's bum and desperately wanting a better retirement pension that they made this movie. And now they're making another one. With Shia to star.
What have we learned? Despite horrible critical reviews and disappointing box office returns (both movies made tons of money but not as much as expected for two proven franchises, especially IJ4), the show will go on for these horrible, horrible ideas. I'm so mad that I don't even want to rent this sure-to-be-pieces-of-garbage. Maybe someday Hollywood will grow a conscience and let things lie in the grave they built for themselves.
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