Yet Another Movie

Tonight I watched the Mummy 3 with a friend, and it was rubbish. Not because the acting or the CGI sucked. It was just too fucking predictable.

As a teenager I was a big fan of blockbuster action movies. Coming into my twenties I’m having trouble staying interested throughout these films. It is trivial to see that these movies are the same stories over and over again. After some brief conflict during their first meeting the hero eventually always gets the girl (note the gender roles). The villain, who is pure evil come to life, always gets his ass kicked by the noble hero in the end. There is usually one silly awkward guy around for the cheap laughs.

The CGI has gotten better and there are a few new tricks every couple of years, but that sort of thing gets old pretty quickly too. Numerous movies (300, The Mummy 1-3, Lord of the Rings, Panthom Menace, …) feature long action sequences with huge armies fighting each other.

Indiana Jones was the first to come across an ancient temple that was filled with booby traps to keep unwanted visitors out. After the success of that movie everybody appears to be stumbling across ancient hidden tombs – see National Treasure 1-2, the Mummy 1-3, Tomb Raider or pretty much any recent movie that involves archeology.

I can go on and on.

I’m sure the movies I watched in my childhood were the same unoriginal crap, and there was nothing new exciting about them either. But at least then it was new and exciting to me.