A Couple of Sequels

We watched a couple of movies recently that are sequels to films we saw a while back.

ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: THE SQUEAKQUEL seems to have been pretty much universally reviled, but I think you have to approach it for what it is. It’s singing and dancing CGI chipmunks, for goodness’ sake. It’s not supposed to be CITIZEN KANE. Yes, the humor is silly and juvenile. I laughed quite a bit anyway. And the movie does manage to make a few sly digs at the merchandising of celebrities. This is a time-waster, but an amiable, good-natured one.

Then there’s THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON, as it’s being called now. For a long time, the most popular post in the history of this blog was my review of the first TWILIGHT movie. I figure a lot of 14-year-old girls have Google searches saved so they get links to every mention of TWILIGHT anywhere on the Internet, and that accounted for the fleeting surge in my blog’s popularity. Of course, most if not all of them never came back. But that’s okay. Maybe one or two lingered to read an Orrie Hitt post.

Anyway, what can you say about NEW MOON? It’s more of the same. Kristen Stewart remains an interesting young actress (if you haven’t seen ADVENTURELAND, you should watch it real soon), Robert Pattinson is still maybe the goofiest-looking heartthrob in the history of movies, and there’s lot of angst and brooding. Oh, and giant werewolves. The special effects are pretty good, but the movie suffers from a disjointed plot when the scene suddenly shifts about halfway through and everything that happens in the first half of the movie gets shoved aside. I haven’t read the books, but I’m told by people who have that this too-abrupt shift is in the novel, too. Then everything ends in a cliffhanger setting up the next movie, which we’ll probably watch, too. These movies are pretty silly, but they’re not terrible . . . which I suppose puts them on about the same level as ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS.

Of course, when I watched the credits at the end of NEW MOON and saw that it was directed by Chris Weitz, one of the guys behind the AMERICAN PIE movies, I couldn’t help but think, “Man, a cameo by Steve Stifler sure would have livened this up.”