Hollywood Lacking in Imagination

 Brook Heald, staff writer

Sadly, the movie theatre has been put on my hate list.

When I take a look back at all the movies released recently, it’s just not worth it to go to the movies anymore. It used to be fun, but now I’m scared to go because I might waste my money on something incredibly stupid, or something I’ve seen before.

The make-believe movies are some of the worst ideas, and they usually come out disappointing. Take “Battlefield Earth” (2000), for instance. You looked at this movie when it came out and said, “Oh, it has John Travolta in it, so it has to be good”. Wrong! We can’t depend on who is acting in a movie now, because some of the most highly-respected actors are taking horrible movies.

“Battlefield Earth” was like a high school play on screen. The “Star Trek” motion picture just proves that Hollywood didn’t have any better ideas. Unless someone is a big fan of the TV series, it is the most excruciating Sci-fi movie to sit through. They couldn’t even have a sense of humor in this movie. They tried to put in some funny lines, but it only made the movie worse.

The worst ideas Hollywood came up with were sequels. They tried to make sequels to movies that needed to be made and left that way. “The Matrix Reloaded” (2003) was a huge disappointment. After the director spent four years dissecting the first one to make the second, he ended up making a huge fool out of himself, and definitely should have left the 20-minute techno scene in Zion out. It looked like a remade Lenny Kravitz video.

“Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blue” (2003) should have never been a thought in anyone’s mind. The first one was fun, but the second one was a whole dish of annoying. Turning everything you own pink and trying to find the birth mother of your precious Chihuahua is about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. This movie made me feel dumb when I watched it.

Then they decide to come out with an “Oceans Twelve”. At this point I wanted to shoot myself. This film was drowned in inside jokes and painful additions, such as Catherine Zeta-Jones. She went beneath herself with this one. It was made by a bunch of rich people who came out with the same thing expecting you to love it.... Yeah, right.

Do you remember “Dumb and Dumber”? Ok, that movie was funny, but again they had to make a cross between a sequel and a remake. “Dumber and Dumberer” (2003) draws you in with the smart title, but the retard jokes and doody gags were sickening. That was one that should have been left alone, but Hollywood ruins that again.

“Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights” (2004) was a clever idea but failed to impress. You can’t take a movie such as “Dirty Dancing” (1987) and try to turn it into a Latin love-fest, it’s just not right. Yeah, so the guy used some good Swayze lines, but it didn’t help at all.

Some of the more recent remakes have got me going in circles. “Charlie the Chocolate Factory” (2005) left me at a loss for words. There is nothing to explain what they did to the original with this remake. Hollywood is definitely getting bored, so bored they don’t realize they are ruining the joy of a movie. “War of the Worlds” (2005), “The Amityville Horror” (2005), and the “House of Wax” (2005) were the worst remakes of 2005 so far. They just leave you confused and dumbfounded.

The most hated remake was “Psycho” (1998). It was a remake of Hitchcock’s “Psycho,” and Van Sent did a pretty good job. He was very blunt and experimental with his remake, and many people hated that fact. He took bold moves and might have made Hitchcock proud but no one else.

Last but not least, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (2003) was the last straw. That movie has been remade so many times now it is not even a movie anymore. Yeah, it is a fascinating, supposedly true story about a crazed man with a chainsaw but they could have made the original and then maybe just one after that. But no, they make three different motion pictures about it and multiple knock-offs. The film industry needs to start drawing the line on all these horrible ideas for movies, including boring, ignorant remakes and sequels.

We need to get together and write Hollywood a letter saying they need to start thinking instead of being lazy and just remaking and half-thinking it. Before they know it, the film industry will lose money like they did during the Great Depression. Let’s just hope and pray that they turn their light bulbs back on soon and give us something we can remember and be proud of.