The Girlfriend informed me there's a Robocop sequel in the works (scheduled to come out 2010). Do you/I/we need further proof that the movie industry is driven by sequels? Robocop is so 80s. Yes, it had a strong fanbase (in the 80s)...but it's not like any of the movies were good. Sure, the premise was amusing and the first film was tolerable--but no one is out there clamoring for a "Robocop 4." Yes, I know people will see it because moviegoers are stupid and will seeing anything with a number in the title (I have a friend who saw "Hellboy 2" even thought he skipped the original). But if you show me one person whose life is incomplete without another Robocop movie--someone not living in their parent's basement or sharing any of the characteristics of Comic Book Guy--I'll show you someone who is a completely useless part of our society. Another Robocop...I'm appalled.

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My brother will vehemently disagree with me on this one, but I hate montages in movies. They really offer nothing for plot forwarding, humor, or entertainment value. Montages are nothing but time-fillers. They're used to motivate the audience and manipulate feel-good emotions when the filmmaker has no substance to put into his film.

That's not to say every movie that has a montage in it is crap. I just feel that a montage is a cheap copout for filmmakers. Montages don't tell a story. In some cases it can be used to show the passage of time; but more often than not montages are unnecessary and come off like cheap music videos.

A few years ago I went to go see the "Flight of the Phoenix" remake in theaters. It was a January movie so I should've known better, but my buddy and I were bored. The movie was absolutely terrible--but that's not what I want to discuss. There was a montage in the movie where the survivors all worked hard to repair the plane while listening to OutKast's "Hey Ya!" I remember really feeling pumped up and energized by that scene because I liked the song; I didn't realize I was manipulated to feel that way. The song had nothing to do with the movie. It was merely a hit song at the time and the only thing I liked about the sequence was the music. And that's exactly what I mean by calling a montage a cheap ploy.

I don't remember the running time of "Phoenix," but I know Hollywood uses montages to stretch out the length of a film. The worst, most blatant use of montage-stretching I've ever seen was in "Rocky IV." The move was a hour and a half long and if you take out the montages, it probably cuts film down to 17 minutes of actual dialogue. The movie was filled with four-minute montages followed by two minutes of dialogue followed by another four-minute montage. Sylvester Stallone seemed more obsessed with promoting bad 80s music and directing music videos than making a decent movie (add me the endless list of people who bash "Rocky IV" on the internet). I watched that movie a few years ago and couldn't believe how terribly bad it was. "Rocky IV" has to be the "Citizen Kane" of crap.

Even with those over-the-top montages.

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