Before diving right into the subject of "did we really need THAT in high definition?" tomorrow, I thought I'd touch upon a similar subject and revisit the dreaded "unnecessary sequel."
Our first sequel is one I'd honestly forgotten existed, until a review of it popped up online: The Descent 2. There was maybe a 20% chance of getting me to see it in the first place, and that was only because of the Aliens-like premise of a search team going in following the events of The Descent. Then I heard about why they were going in, and there's no reason to watch this movie.
For those of you who haven't seen The Descent, I'm going to have to spoil it a little bit for you: there are technically two endings to the film. Director Neil Marshall had his original ending which is a downer but links up nicely to the beginning of the film, but Lionsgate didn't feel like that ending tested well, so they changed it. In the "American" cut, a dream sequence that precedes the actual ending is now the ending, complete with a last second "jump" scare for the audience. The chief difference between the two is that one implies a character lives and the other one makes it clear there's no hope.
(From here on out I'm going to be kind of deliberately vague in case you want to see The Descent, which I highly recommend.)
The Descent 2 is a sequel to the "American" cut, so I don't even know how it'll be legible to audiences outside of the U.S. Personally speaking, I like the "downbeat" ending more and am a bit surprised the director of this movie (not Neil Marshall) talked the actress into coming back. Let alone two of them. The explanation for the second not-dead character is the impetus for our heroine returning to the caves of Appalachia. Her father is a Congressman or Senator or something like that, so he drags our newly-christened British Ripley back underground with a group of, I don't know, State Troopers? They get lost, monsters attack, it's Aliens in caves.
However, in a movie that pretty much betrays the dynamic between characters in The Descent, the other "should be dead but now isn't" character has become a bad-ass monster killer, just like our lead from the first film. That's dumb in and of itself, but this character is also a) the reason the girls went into the wrong cave in the first place, b) killed one of her friends and lied about it, and c) was the ONE person the heroine from The Descent had the chance to save and DIDN'T! Why would she go back to expose that?
So yeah, any hopes of me wanting to see The Descent 2 are dashed. This sounds like a pointless cash-in on the title by folks not related to the first film, ala s. Darko. Speaking of which...
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As the Cap'n promised, so that you won't have to, I will sit down and watch s. Darko: A Donnie Darko Tale (I swear to you that's the whole title) either on Wednesday or Thursday*, despite the litany of bad reviews I've been seeing. What can I say? I'm a glutton for punishment sometimes, and as horrible of an idea as s. Darko is, the trailer kind of captured the vibe of Donnie Darko. Kind of.
Periodically I'll look into a sequel which is tangentially related to the original film, and while there's not really a reason to care about Samantha Darko's adventures or history of Frank the Bunny sightings, I don't see what other direction they could have gone in. Why they'd do it at all is a question I can answer for you: because anyone who can talk themselves into liking Southland Tales** will probably buy a copy of s. Darko in the hopes it captures some of their obsession with the Donnie Darko universe. The producers knew that, so they made a sequel no one was asking for.
But then again was anyone seriously asking for a Predator movie with Danny Glover and Gary Busey? And look how awesome that turned out to be***!
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That leads us nicely into tomorrow's piece, which will try to answer the question "Why is Predator 2 coming out on Blu Ray instead of, say, The African Queen?" I'll also try to figure out why so many mid-90s action films are available when it's clear that other studio classics have also been remastered in HD but aren't on shelves. See you then.
P.S. I'm terribly saddened to see so many negative reviews of The Limits of Control, the new movie from Jim Jarmusch. Even the ones that try to be positive admit that basically the movie is an exercise of repetition for 116 minutes in order to test how long people will wait for nothing to happen. Bummer.
* Let me be totally honest here. It's probably going to be Thursday because I don't want to be angry before or after the season finale of Dinosaur Island.
** You would have to talk yourself into liking that hodgepodge of bad ideas, and if any fanatic can do it, Darko-heads can. Trust me, I've seen them.
*** Don't get it twisted: s. Darko will not be as awesome as Predator 2, I can promise you that. Also, I'm not insinuating Predator 2 is not awesome because it IS, dammit.
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