Quick, a show of hands: Who remembers the plotline of the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie? No, not the trilogy, but that god-oh-so-awful sequel to that god-oh-so-hard-to-follow-every-plotline-of-every-character trilogy. The one that featured Penelope Cruz? Oh, you don’t remember she was in one? Neither do I. After all, it was 6 years ago.
Now, turn to your kids. Ask them: Are they a fan of the
Wimpy Kid movies? Can they recall what was the last movie about? Oh, they weren’t
born yet / too young to remember? I don’t blame them, that was 5 years ago.
That raises the question: Why now? Why resuscitate a
supposedly dead / should have been left alone franchise instead of creating new
stories and new original movies?
The simple answer is: Why not? Everyone else is doing it,
and it is the least effort one needs to invest on to bring in the cash. After
all, the characters are there, you just need to expand the storyline (and in
some cases like Pirates of the Caribbean series, you don’t even need new
stories you just recycle the same stories with different villains and
sidekicks).
In an era of sequels, prequels, remake, reboot, sequels to
the reboot, reboot of the sequels to the reboot and things like that, original
ideas are hard to come by. As of now, just a few months after the Resident Evil
movie series supposedly came to an end, there are talks of rebooting it
already. Even your beloved Pixar Studio commits such crime by making a Toy
Story 4 after cheating us of our tears at the end of Toy Story 3.
Go to the cinema website now, and count how many original English
(Hollywood) movies showing now. I’m pretty sure you only need one finger:
Colossal (note to self: must watch that). King Arthur you said? Nope, that was
intended as the first movie of a franchise which was then (I supposed) shut
down by the failure at the box office. Beauty and the Beast? Nope, doesn’t
count if you are the remake of a beloved animated movie. Luckily the Chinese movies
have not caught on the symptom yet, finger-crossed.
It is a chicken and egg question. Do studios make
un-original movies because the audience go watch them, or the audience go watch
un-original movies because the studios only make them nowadays?
That was philosophical, and I’m not here to start a debate on
this topic. I am merely lamenting the lack of originality nowadays. And I’m
also not here to write a movie review. Just a short train of thoughts.
So, are any of the two latest instalments in the “revived” franchises
good?
Well, they are entertaining. I’ll give them that. But
interestingly, the one element that make one successful is also the one element
that sinks the other: nostalgia.
Ah, nostalgia, you are one tricky thing. People like to remember
the best things that happened in the past, the things that they shared with
their love ones, the good memories they had watching the last few movies in the
series. Having too much of it can sometimes prevent you from moving on.
You see, the storyline of the latest Pirates of the
Caribbean movie is nothing new. It’s just about a drunk Captain Jack Sparrow
and him being chased by someone coming after him for revenge, accompanying by
some sidekicks (usually consists of a handsome young man and a beautiful young
lady). You roll your eyes every time they escape using the same tactics that
you have seen many times in previous films, and even the music are so boringly
repetitive. But, you see Will Turner, played by the same Orlando Bloom, and the
whole movie is about his son trying to rescue him from a curse so he can show
his handsome face on the land again. So you invest your whole energy throughout
the movie rooting for the gang to succeed, because you are sure when they do,
when Will Turner finally step foot on the land, Kiera Knightley as Elizabeth
Swann will come back too. There, you want the movie to succeed for the
nostalgia you hold on to the two old characters. I won’t even lie to say at
this point I am quite tired with the repetitive acting of Johnny Depp as
Captain Jack Sparrow that I no longer find this campy pirate an exciting
character, so yeah my eyes were a bit moist when I saw Orlando Bloom and
(spoiler alert) Kiera Knightley again. They are the only reason I stay for the
whole two hours of the movie.
Wimpy Kid, on the other hand, doesn’t understand this at
all. I must confess I like the first few movies for a few reasons, and they
were quite often something to do with the charismatic cast. When you reboot the
franchise with 100% new actors (I totally understand the original cast are now
too old for the roles, which is my point of why they should leave the movie
alone… much like the Narnia franchise did the correct thing of not pursuing
another film), you have to find a bunch that can compete with the first batch.
Unfortunately, the new film failed this one aspect. We don’t see a dorkily
confident Greg Heffley, neither do we see a nerdily cute Rowley. Rodrick is not
the devilishly idiot we knew, and Mom and Dad are not the same clumsily overprotective
parents we came to love from previous films. All in all, I was so distracted
throughout the whole movie thinking things like “what would have the original
Rodrick done in such situation”. No matter how they tried to imitate the style
of the original movies, it just didn’t work without the same actors.
And now, I’m home popping the original Wimpy Kid movies into
my DVD player. That’s the thing about nostalgia, once it is open it takes time
for them to go away.
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