Saw

If its Halloween, it must be a convoluted plot! 

The Saw Series started as an indie film, and in a lot of ways it was the poster child of the cross-over hit that marks the best of the indie world.  I wasn't a huge fan of it, but hey, if people want to watch people getting killed, who am I to stop them?  Well, Saw VI is almost here, and Saw VII is already in the works and the simple story of people being tortured to death, has been turned in a long-winded, confusing, and sometimes completely revisionist story of a man trying to change people, helped by an increasingly ludicrous number of apprentices.

Let's just leave well enough alone!  Didn't we learn anything from Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street or Halloween?  Don't just keep making sequels that expand and in-turn destroy the original.  This is the 21st Century, copy the hell out of a movie, and then remake it!

Final Destination

This Friday sees the release of the fourth Final Destination, and supposedly the last.  As convoluted as Saw is, Final Destination is so much worse.  While Saw took the concept from the first film and expanded it, the Final Destination series basically just remakes the first film with slightly different deaths.  Wikipedia has a great breakdown of what happens in each film: 

The premise to both the film and book series about death is essentially the same: A group of people are gathered together at a venue, when suddenly a member of the group has a premonition of a disaster that will kill all of the people present. Horrified and motivated by the vision of impending doom, the person with the premonition then tries to prevent the incident by alerting the others. The other members have doubts of the incredible claims but the visionary is persistent, fracturing the group in hostile skeptics, dubious believers, or those that had no choice but to accompany the visionary. Soon afterward, disaster strikes as foreseen, proving to the survivors that the visionary was right, and their opinions change drastically.

Over the next few days, weeks or months, the same survivors begin to die in a series of horrific and often improbable accidents until the same visionary notices a pattern and concludes that, while surviving the initial disaster, they are still destined to die. The visionary usually teams up with another fellow survivor of the opposite sex, and they are determined to once again cheat death; then the same group devises various plans to survive that usually fail until the protagonist visionary finds a solution to their fate, having salvaged two or three of the others. By the end, however, most or all of the survivors are dead. In the subsequent movie, the previous survivors are revealed to be dead, or die in the film.

These movies take formulaic to a whole new level, but they did give us some pretty awesome death scenes...

Die Hard

Die Hard and Die Hard 3 are two of my favorite action movies.  Yeah, I do have a man-crush on John McTiernan.   But the fourth one really annoyed the be-jesus out of me.  It had nothing to really do with the series, and just sort of killed the concept.  I was excited for the film when it was announced, but then Len Wiseman was signed to direct, and then I saw the trailers, I just didn't feel like it was a Die Hard movie anymore. 

John McClane wasn't getting hurt.  He was basically a god, who cracked-wise, and was from New Jersey.  Where were the bloody feet from Die Hard 1?  Where was the degenerate alcoholic from the beginning of Die Hard 3?  Where was the sweater from Die Hard 2? 

Bruce Willis has said officially that if a fifth film is not in production within two years of Die Hard 4 (2007) then he will pass on the film.  So, this point might be moot, or Bruce Willis might be a liar, liar pants on fire with a $30 million check in his pants, which are on fire.  Let's hope that Die Hard 4 is the last in the series, and as the years pass we all just remember the Die Hard movies we love.

"Something" Movie (or the works of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer)

It started with Scary Movie.  Then it was Date Movie.  Then there was Epic Movie.  Then it was Meet the Spartans.  Then finally it was Disaster Movie.

I'm not going to lie, I've only seen Scary Movie, and while it was sort of funny it did not need a hundred sequels.  From what I've heard, and read, the other movies by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer haven't been Shakespeare either.

Josh Levin at Slate went so far as to say:

Friedberg and Seltzer do not practice the same craft as P.T. Anderson, David Cronenberg, Michael Bay, Kevin Costner, Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker, the Wayans Brothers, Uwe Boll, any dad who takes shaky home movies on a camping trip, or a bear who turns on a video camera by accident while trying to eat it. They are not filmmakers. They are evildoers, charlatans, symbols of Western civilization's decline...

While these films don't represent a traditional film series, they basically form a franchise that has just gotten worse and worse as time progresses.

Alien Vs. Predator

I love Alien.  I love Predator.  I thought it was a holy grail of sci-fi action to bring these two hallowed franchises together.  What we got were two films that no one really likes. 

First Paul W.S. Anderson was brought in, and he basically forgot all the rules set-up in the original films.  Then the Brothers Strause were brought in for AVP 2, and they basically strung together scenes from the original films and added some over the top violence and a cliched teen storyline.  Word on the street is that the Brothers Strause are being brought back for the 3rd film, which will be set in space.  This is apparently in aide of bringing AVP back to its' roots.

It's obvious that Fox is too invested in the series to allow a Ridley Scott or James Cameron to take the reins and create a new vision, so let's just kill it before it causes any more damage to the world.  I want to one day share Ridley Scott's Alien with my children, and I don't want to have to explain that its really a lot better than Aliens Vs. Predators 13!

Underworld

Underworld seemed dead after the second film in the series.  Sure, there was an immediate announcement that there would be a third movie, but neither the director nor the star were set to reprise their roles.  Originally, Underworld 3 was going to be straight-to-video, but then a hole formed in Sony's slate early this year, and it was brought to theaters.  Now, news is coming out that not only will there be a fourth film, the first in a proposed new trilogy, but that Kate Beckinsale will most likely reprise her role. 

While I liked the first two films, there seems to be little reason for further entries.  The whole mythology was based on creating a hybrid to bring the warring factions together, and considering that happened, I'm not sure they should really be milking the series any further.  Sure, its a stylish series, but the concept seems played out.  I mean, can Kate Beckinsale really support another trilogy based solely on her...well, maybe she can...

Anything with Jay or Silent Bob

This is like shooting fish in a barrel.  I will admit that I loved Clerks, I loved Mallrats, I loved Chasing Amy, and I loved Clerks 2, but why do we need this many movies taking place in the same world when spaceships aren't involved.  Sure, they are small parts of the movies, and it looks like they are done with, but Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back looked like the end and we still got Clerks 2.  Its finally time for Kevin Smith to burn that trench coat and distance himself from these characters.

I only have two words for you: talking dinosaurs.  Yes, the script for Jurassic Park 4 follows an elite crew of super intelligent, genetically engineered dinosaurs, which are trained by the government, and carry weapons. 

Jump, please meet shark.

Michael Crichton made science fiction smart again with his books, Jurassic Park being a perfect example.  This novel brought science and technology together for a thrilling ride that translated perfectly onto the silver screen.  Now, 16 years later, its descended to talking dinosaurs. This is all rumor, but its been a consistent rumor for going on 8 years now.

Pirates of the Caribbean

I loved the first Pirates movie.  Actually, I insanely loved it.  Rarely do movies come along that capture a spirit of adventure and wonder like the first Pirates movie did.  It had everything working against, Jerry Bruckheimer pulling the strings, a young brash director behind the camera, and a studio like Disney controlling the production.  But still, the film that was released was beautiful and fun.  Then the Matrix syndrome set in.  The resulting trilogy became bloated and convoluted, and with each subsequent movie we got further away from what made the first movie such a good time.

Now Pirates 4 is on the horizon and the film has lost its director, two of its stars and most of the creative team that made the first film such a hit.  Sure, its a money machine, but who really wants to just see Jack Sparrow by himself for 2 hours?

The Mummy (including The Scorpion King series)

Tomb of the Dragon Emperor wasn't exactly the hit many thought it would be, but it still racked in over $350 million (realize though that the movie cost $145 million, with at least $100 million in advertising) so a sequel is on its way.  I could go on and on about how the film isn't exciting, or fresh.  I could opine about how it was always just an Indiana Jones ripoff.  I could even discuss the remarkable plotholes in part 2 and 3.  Yet, one point seems to the most important.  The third movie was even about a Mummy...your sequel is invalid!