Sequelitis: Has Hollywood finally been cured?

Shrek 2 added Puss n Boots to the cast and improved on the original.

Scott referred to the Summer of 2003 as The Summer of Sequels. It was an accurate statement. There were a lot of them made last year. Unfortunately, too many of them were as bad or worse than the original. 2004's sequels are fewer but better. They have a level of respectability that sequels seldom enjoy.

2 Fast 2 Furious and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle are just two of the many pathetic sequels from last year. A couple of decent ones came out like X-Men 2 and Terminator 3. But they were easily out numbered by disappointing long winded titled movie sequels like Laura Croft: Tomb Raider The Cradle of Life and Legally Blonde 2: Red White and Blonde, that all suffered disapointing box office returns.

It appears that Hollywood has finally realized name recognition is not enough. Simply rehashing the original to milk a few more dollars out of a popular character is no longer enough.

Shrek II has racked up big bucks and great reviews. Usually it is bad for a sequel to introduce a new major character. Here, however, it works. The addition of Puss N Boots adds to the fun without taking away from the regular characters.

Spiderman II is an improvement over the first one. The villain is less over the top, and the drama of Peter Parker's life is progressed in a normal and dramatically entertaining way.

The third Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, received some of the best reviews so far for the series. It will be exciting to see if this series can maintain the level of excellence established with this latest installment.

The Bourne Supremacy is better than the first excellent Bourne movie, The Bourne Identity. The plot is better crafted and it’s filmed at an even more amazingly tense pace.

The sequel to Meet the Parents, Meet the Fockers comes out this holiday season. I have no idea if it will be good or not. But, with the cast additions of Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand, it is at least a sure bet that they are taking this sequel seriously.

After years of being ripped off by hack sequels, it is a feeling of vindication to finally have Hollywood understand and appreciate return customer business and not take it for granted by throwing together some half assed movie and calling it a sequel. I hope this trend will last.