|
How long can Hollywood recycle itself?
Friday, April 27, 2007
Tom Long / The Detroit News Familiarity used to breed contempt. This summer, Hollywood is hoping familiarity will breed box-office dollars. Chances are, Hollywood is right. And you've got to wonder what that says about America these days. There's no denying that most of the major films released in the coming summer months are going to look a whole lot like movies everybody's already seen. Not only is there the biggest flood of threequels ever recorded on the way -- including the third installments of the "Spider-Man," "Shrek," "Pirates of the Caribbean," "Ocean's Eleven," "Bourne" and "Rush Hour" franchises -- but there's also the long-delayed fourth installment of "Die Hard" as well as the fifth "Harry Potter" film. Simple sequels such as the second "Fantastic Four" or "Hostel" movies, both due in June, seem downright fresh in comparison. But it's not just sequels. Hollywood also will be recycling other comfy-cultural product onto the big screen, as well. "The Simpsons" will jump from TV to the movies; "Nancy Drew" makes the leap from dusty book shelves to the multiplex; and all those old "Transformers" toys will suddenly become hot again when a megabucks film production comes out July 4. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with any of these films; chances are, some will be thoroughly enjoyable while a few may even be good. But you do have to wonder where Hollywood is going with all this. Are we really looking at "Ocean's Eighteen" in the year 2020? Is anyone sadistic enough to be craving "Hostel: The Early Years" two summers from now? More worrisome, though, is what this all says about Americans as an audience. Can we be led like blind, conditioned sheep to shell out $10 every year for a slight variation on a movie we just saw the year before? Is that really what we enjoy at this point? And if so, why? Has the world around us become such a scary place that we are forced to find comfort in the familiar, no matter how mediocre or brief-lived that comfort may be? Have new ideas -- even ideas expressed in movie form -- become frightening? The odd thing about such familiarity is that it is basically un-American. This was a nation built on progress, on the idea of manifest destiny, on dreams of reaching beyond the status quo. Are we now living in America: The Sequel? It was only 40 years ago that we were reaching for the stars. Now we're reaching for the popcorn while watching the third installment in a film series about a big green ogre, or a smooth-talking gaggle of con men, or a fey pirate who seems perpetually high. Are we so uncomfortable in an outside world filled with senseless war, wanton violence, religious fanaticism, economic disparity and injustice that we're forced to take refuge again and again and again in a dark room with an aging cop who shoots terrorists and a teenager who fights evil with a magic wand? Uh, yeah. Guess so. But that old saw about familiarity breeding contempt will likely come into play at some point. Wands only stay magic for so long, and even green ogres get old eventually. Sooner or later, the shell-shocked American audience is going to get around to craving something different, a fresh buzz. And then the residents of Hollywood are going to have to come up with innovative story ideas, characters and directions. The business is going to have to act American again. Let's hope it remembers how. 
|
|
|---|