The boredom of sequels

Rating: Null/10 (15 November 2011)

It's not news that Hollywood has serious writing problems these days. Most of what comes out is tedious rehashes of things we've seen a million times before. Especially this is true of sequels where the previous movies often seem to be a heavy luggage that drags the movie down, rather than a legacy to build on.
I loved the first Pirates of the Caribbean-movie, I still think it's one of the best adventure movies in a very long time. It's got a near-perfect mix of adventure, action and comedy without ever becoming too silly or too violent. Of course it also had great actors to match. The second movie was slightly less entertaining but still good. The third one I remember seeing at the theater, but I can't for the life of me remember anything from it. Probably that's not a very good sign.
This fourth installment has all the elements that made the first movie great. It has the adventurous music, good actors (Depp, Rush, McShane etc.) and a fairly suitable mix between action and comedy. Still, it does nothing to excite me. I just sat there feeling like I had seen it all before, and nothing really came as a surprise. There is just no creativity here, like everyone is just going through the motions. Quite frankly, half-an-hour in I was beginning to get pretty bored. And of course it didn't help that each and every movie these days has to drag on for almost 2,5 hours even though there is script for about 1,5. Is there some hidden premium when you make long movies? Wouldn't it be cheaper to shoot a movie that's 90 minutes instead of 200? Many of the problems I experience with a lot of movies today could be solved by slashing 20-30 minutes from the running-time and adjusting the script accordingly.
In the end watching this is like watching Pirates of the Caribbean for the fourth time. Nothing new, nothing fresh and I found it incredibly hard to care about anything that happened. If you really like all of previous movies I guess you will like this too, since it's more of the same. But honestly, for the rest of us it's not worth the trouble. It's not as bad as the latest Transformers-movie, but seeing both of them in a short space of time I'm about fed up with Hollywood-sequels for a while. I want to see something fresh, and this corpse has been floating for a while.