Another week, another exciting weekend! As I said last week, all of this is culled from independent and, I hope, verifiable research, and not from the movies.com box office report. I don’t even know what that site is.

Box Office Results for the May 25-28 Weekend

1. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

My hope going into this weekend was that maybe — and this was optimistic, I know — the general public would realize that these pirate movies were, in fact, silly little pirate movies, and not at all good. It’s like they took Cutthroat Island, replaced Geena Davis with Johnny Depp, and then it made a zillion dollars and garnered, somehow, a whole whack of critical praise.

I’m being mean. It’s not that I hate these Pirate movies, it’s just that I don’t really understand them. Johnny Depp is a good actor, sure, — though I hear there’s about to be a backlash — but his whole I’m-a-drunk-pirate deal is not exactly awe-inspiring. Instead, it’s just kind of cloying. Adding an effeminate and arrogant character to a overly-complicated pirate movie does not make it anything more than an overly-complicated pirate movie, no matter how much people love pointing out that, like, he soooo based his character on Keith Richards.

Anyway, $142 million! That’s a lot, even considering it was a long weekend. Still, though, it’s enough of a comparative drop compared to previous installments that, hopefully, it won’t be a franchise we see again for a good long time.

2. Shrek the Third

It’s falling fast, but not fast enough.

I’m coming off negative in this column, probably, but rest assured that there are summer movies I’m looking forward to. I don’t hate all of them. I’m quite looking forward to Ocean’s Thirteen, because I think it’s likely to be amazing, and even some unlikely candidates like Rush Hour 3 sort of appeal to me in the whole “Asians speaking french is funny now?” vein.

Shrek the Third, though (and Pirates 3), I have no love for. It’s not just that it’s annoying film, filled with characters who will be appearing in all manner of product commercials for years now. Rather, it’s that the films take away from the kind of animated movie that might actually appeal to adults in more than the “I know that celebrity reference!” sphere.

Again, though, it’s dropping faster than the previous films, and it’s likely that the franchise won’t become any sort of James Bond-ish superfranchise. Which is only good news for everyone who thinks casting Eddie Murphy as a Donkey was the worst idea this side of casting Eddie Murphy as a dragon. Or Eddie Murphy as a vampire. Or Eddie Murphy as an obese woman.

3. Spider-Man 3

The third installment in a franchise always tends to suffer a bit, doesn’t it? Obviously you can’t include the third installment in planned triologies in that conclusion, but it seems to hold true for everything else.

The first sequel is usually taken as a chance by the creators to refine the things they created in the first film. Characters are fleshed out, plots are expanded upon, there’s usually a bigger budget for special effects — despite conventional wisdom, it’s not uncommon for a sequel to improve on the original.

The second sequel, however, almost always seemed forced. Spider-Man 3 is forced. It’s like Raimi just had to make it, and wasn’t at all enthused with a lot of the source material. So he started throwing around edicts like, hey, Peter will show his anger through his demand for cookies. And Harry will smile through 100% of his on-screen time, even after he has been hideously scarred and burned. Because smiling is funny and makes the audience feel at ease.

And I’m saying this as a guy who liked the third Spider-Man. I’m glad they made it, even. Though, honestly, it deserves to not be tracking as well as the earlier two installments.

4. Bug

What the hell. Who the hell went to go see Bug? Why would anyone go see Bug? Did they confuse it with A Bug’s Life or perhaps, but more unlikely, Junebug? Because there is nothing at all that looks appealing about this movie except, of course, Harry Connick Jr.

5. Waitress

Welcome back, Keri Russell. It’s like people finally got over that haircut you had! And now they’re ready to embrace you again. As a waitress. But not a real waitress — a made-up one. A fictional one.

I’m glad for Waitress‘ success, but there’s always going to be a bit of a question surrounding how much of its success is due to its director’s untimely death. It’s one of those things that, even if it’s not at all a factor (and I don’t think it should be), other people can make assumptions about, based on pre-conceived notions of what death might mean.

It looks good, regardless. I hope to see it soon.

Conclusion

Third movies are bad! Really bad! Stop making them. The industry got lucky with Karate Kid III and ever since then they’ve tried to recreate some of that fateful voyage with further sequels to sequels.

It never really works as well as they’d expect, though.

Next week: Knocked Up looks better than it has any right to be, and has so many Freaks & Geeks alumni on its cast than it might as well be sold in a box set with it. Mr. Brooks teams Kevin Costner and Dane Cook, something America has been begging for for years. Meanwhile, Rise: Blood Hunter has Lucy Liu, whose career has fallen into a well.

Be Sociable, Share!

•