America became dangerously dumber for having witnessed “Dude, Where’s My Car?” It is undoubtedly the worst movie featuring Seann William Scott, who is excellent at playing the typical college party-going idiot. America doesn’t seem to learn from its mistakes, because Hollywood, in its golden age of unoriginality, has decided to unleash a sequel to this painful movie. Sadly, I kid you not when I say that 2004 will be the year of “Seriously Dude, Where’s My Car?”
Before that hits the dollar theatres, Scott and some of his cohorts from “American Pie” (and “American Pie 2”) are working on another sequel, “American Wedding,” where Jim gets married to his band camp love, Michelle. I hope Jim doesn’t love wedding cake as much as he does apple pie. This isn’t just a bad sequel; it’s a bad threequel, as I like to call it. What else is in the works? How about “Legally Blonde 2?” Yes, “Red, White, and Blonde” will be ready in time for the Fourth of July. Perhaps it will be the ditsy, heartwarming story of how Reese Witherspoon is again discriminated against for being a gorgeous, annoying blonde. Also, it should answer all those questions I had at the end of the first one — the main one being, “Can I have my money back?” There are several other sequels of which you should be aware. In the next couple of years, we will unfortunately be witness commercials of sequels to “Charlie’s Angels,” “Barbershop,” “Jeepers Creepers” and “Scooby Doo.” I also found out about some threequels being developed, including “Scary Movie 3” and “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.” Boy, Arnold wasn’t kidding when he said he’d be back.
What about the dreaded “four-quel?” I’m glad you asked that. Out of all these sequels I mentioned, no movie will be as hilariously bad as “Tremors 4.” No, it won’t feature Kevin Bacon, so it won’t make that Six Degrees game any easier. What in the name of “Caddyshack 2” is going on here? Whatever happened to original screenwriting?
Just because we all enjoyed the original does not mean we want to pay $8.50 to see it again. Sequels encourage actors to become one-dimensional. If you forgot to include a joke about drinking in the first “American Pie,” don’t write another movie about it. Simply pass it off as a deleted scene from the original and slap a DVD collector’s edition together, because collecting DVDs is almost as profitable as collecting soft drink cups from Burger King. Are all sequels horrible and unoriginal? Not necessarily. “The Godfather Part II” won Best Picture in 1974. Personally, I loved “Wayne’s World 2,” as I enjoyed that “Saturday Night Live” sketch. “Christmas Vacation” is as good as the original “Vacation” movie, especially the part where Chevy Chase covers every inch of his roof with staples and Christmas lights. “Airplane II: The Sequel” had exactly six funny moments. Unfortunately, it goes downhill from there. So why are so many of them bad?
They are two-tongued monsters; they aren’t funny and their plots are predictable and trite. In a good chunk of these bad sequels, the main characters did something such as go back in time or visit Europe. Sometimes they will do the exact same thing they did in the first movie, like in “The Mummy Returns” and “Jurassic Park II.” I will probably go to the doghouse for this next statement, because my girlfriend plays hockey, but I bet the sequels to “The Mighty Ducks” were made just so Emilio Estevez could still have a career. Don’t even get me started on “Weekend at Bernie’s II.”
Just thinking about some of these movies makes me admire movie critics for what they have to endure. I can’t fathom why they wrote “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.” Instead of watching a movie with a colon in its title, I would rather have a colonoscopy. I wouldn’t want a second colonoscopy, simply because I would remember the first one, and the original would suffice for me.
