What's With All These Endless Bad Sequels?

The colossal beast of world-wide commercial film that is known as Hollywood, I have to keep reminding itself, is a business. I have to keep reminding myself of this when I open up the Friday "Tempo" section of the local paper and see that there are yet more mediocre film sequels being released.

One would think Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan especially would have enough in the bank by now to say "no" to another "Rush Hour" movie. I'm not dissing these actors or their talents--I just wish they would mix things up a bit and say, "no more of these crummy movies!--I want to do something else, thank you." Yet, off Mr. Chan and Mr. Tucker go again--this time to Paris for another action-heavy, stereotypical retread of familar sex jokes and cars flying around and kick and kapowing.

There is also another "Daddy Day Care" movie out now, called "Daddy Day Camp". At least Eddie Murphy has the ability to say "no" since the new film--which I will not see--stars Oscar Winner Cuba Gooding, Jr., now subbung in the Murphy role.

Mr. Gooding's career arc is a strange one--to go a great job in the fine flick "Jerry Maguire" and then do a couple forgettable comedies is no sin for a young working actor, but it seems that he is on some kind of track into total obscurity. No bad comedy doesn't get his greenlight. He must have a hungry entourage or something, or a crummy agent who must have once saved his life so he can't fire him/her.

Are roles for black actors still so poor that a fine actor like this guy had to choose "vehicles" like that of a camp guide in "Daddy Day Camp", or the dim bus driver stuck transporting a pack of Lucille Ball clones in the disappointing "Rat Race" (2000) or the even more excerable "Boat Trip"--the latter two I did see, and I watched his scenes in paticular mostly slack-jawed and in a state of mild shock. What happened, Cuba?

I have seen the trailer for "Rush Hour--Paris" and the only laugh I got was seeing Roman Polanski--as a French cop--getting punched in the face by both Chan and Tucker at the same time. I know it was fake and hitting someone is wrong, but I figure the guy got off from messing with a young girl and deserved at least some simulated punishment.

The great Max Von Sydow apparently appears briefly in the film as the possibly-shady head of a World Criminal Court. I give Von Sydow some slack for playing bad guys in mediocre films like "Never Say Never" (1982) or "Strange Brew" (1983) because he was never in a real hit film as I recall and I seriously doubt he was well paid for his services to the great maestro, Ingmar Bergman, who died last month. The critic Christy Lemire comments of Von Sydow's appearence in "Rush Hour Troix" that , "If...Bergman hadn't just died, this probably would have killed him."