Beware Of The Threequel!

Dear all: This would have appeared on Tuesday, had I remembered that my Film day is Tuesday. Oops, better luck next week, I suppose. Anyhoo...

The new animal in the movie world is the Threequel. This summer we are going to be bombarded with Part Threes of some of our favourite movies: Spider-Man, Shrek, Pirates Of The Caribbean, Rush Hour...ok, so maybe not some of our favourite movies, but you get the idea.

The threequel is nothing new, of course, but it has a dangerous history of being...well, naff. For the majority of film franchises, the third part usually spells doom and disaster, or just suffers from just not being as good as the last two. There are exceptions: Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade is miles better than Temple Of Doom while Goldfinger is widely regarded as one of the greatest Bond films ever. But sadly these are often overshadowed by the rest of the naff third parts.

Time will tell whether the threequels of this year can change this. The signs aren't good for Spider-Man, the first of them, where critics have been slightly negative about the number of villains and the emphasis on more special effects. Rumours abound that Shrek is fast beginning to lose its charm and as for Pirates...well, name me one credible critic who actually likes any of the Pirates movies.

When it comes to money, a cynical person might argue that the threequel is naff simply because it is created to jump on the bandwagon of the first two films and to make more money for the studios. But I don't think that this will be the case this year, for this year there is immense competition from a certain very-long-awaited film about a nuclear family. Me thinks the big bucks are on this film this year, but we shall have to wait and see...

Laters.