If the first two big sequels of the summer movie season are any indication, things are not looking good for the latest entries in the Pirates, Die Hard, and Rush Hour franchises as both Spider-Man 3 and Shrek the Third have disappointed with substance but taken the box office crowns each and every week. Things may look up though, for first entries into many franchises like the Michael Bay-directed Transformers and The Simpsons Movie, but with a nosedive in quality here in the first month of the season, one can only hope reprieve is at hand for us all.

Shrek the Third is just not a funny movie; it’s an animated comedy about an ogre who doesn’t want to be king and sets out to find the next heir, thereby shunning his job on to a young boy, Arthur (Justin Timberlake). Although after rolling in the allies during the COPS sequence in Shrek 2, there were high hopes that Mike Meyers and company would be able to top themselves in every respect, unfortunately this did not happen, so instead of another Wayne’s World, we’re left with Wayne‘s World 2, and we’re not happy about it.

The entire cast returns to reprise their voice rolls this time around which finds the aforementioned Shrek (Mike Meyers) seeking out Arthur to become rightful king of Far Far Away. Dastardly Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) has other plans as he organizes all the fairy tale villains to siege the kingdom and crown himself king after the death of Princess Fiona’s (Cameron Diaz) father.

Unlike the second film, the pop-culture jokes have been toned way back, with only a few shout-outs to Foot Locker and other small chains instead of the massively funny montage scene from the second film. Even the slapstick humor that set up the series in the original Shrek has been toned back, there’s very little social commentary, all in all it feels as though the series has lost that spunk, that fire that made it so popular with kids and adults alike in its previous two installments.

Sure, there are still a few moments where you’ll find yourself laughing, the Gingerbread Man’s life flashing before his eyes is priceless, but the fairy tale characters that played such an important role lampooning themselves and the Disney-treatment they’ve gotten over the last 60 years is sadly missing from this installment in the series.

So yet another third installment and yet another disappointment, it’s almost feeling like studios should go right to number four after two as three just might be a tad unlucky. Even for true fans of the series, Shrek the Third comes out smelling like an un-showered ogre.

Warning this review contains plot spoilers.

Almost like a loosely written comedy, the writers and producers of Spider-Man 3 choose to include as much material as possible gathered from the comic books, throw it at the wall, and see what stuck with the audience. All we are treated to in the end is an entertaining, albeit unfocused comic book film which tries to cram too much into its 145 minute runtime and doesn’t leave you feeling with the sense of conclusion you were hoping for.

If one was to gather any indication of a film’s quality from its first trailer we should have seen this coming, Spidey 3‘s initial teaser was a jumbled, underwhelming mess that certainly didn’t promote the biggest adventure for the web-slinger on the big screen.

It isn’t that Spider-Man 3 is a bad film; it just tries to do too much. In the span of two-and-a-half-hours we see the origin story for Sandman, the Venom symbiote crash to Earth and “infect” Peter Parker, a love triangle between Parker, Mary Jane and Gwen Stacy, Harry Osborne go from bad, to good, pretending to be good but still bad, then good again, Eddie Brock becoming Venom, and it just goes on and on. In an industry where many time critics complain about a lack of plot, this film goes into the opposite spectrum and tries to give too much to the fans.

Sure there will be fanboys all around who are practically drooling for another chance to see the black-suited Spider-Man toll around New York, or Venom appear on the big screen, but there was so much that could have been excised from the final cut of Sam Raimi’s picture that there’s almost two movie’s worth of material here. Even with all the plot thrown in here the Sandman character feels completely unnecessary, and his inclusion seems more as a way to take the focus away from Venom and Harry’s follow-in-your-father’s-footsteps-brooding.

It was nice to see how the black suit affected Parker, but his over-the-top emo look (ripped straight from an AFI concert) was a bit over the top, and his “jazz” routine near the end of the film’s second act is more of a distraction than really relating to anything pertinent.

The best part of the film is actually the short cameo by cult-actor Bruce Campbell, this time as a French maître d’ who steals each and every scene he’s in.

Spider-Man 3 is going to make a lot of people happy, it’s an entertaining film that puts the web-crawler on the big screen to finish up an initial trilogy, but like the original Star Wars trilogy, the third installment ends up being the big disappointment after a spectacular second chapter. After it’s all said and done, you’ll see the film again and again because its pure Hollywood popcorn, but you won’t come away from the movie like you did the first and second installments with a huge anticipation of the next chapter in the back of your mind. After Spider-Man 3’s credits wrap, you can honestly say, you don’t mind if they make another one or not.

There’s a lot to like about TMNT, but maybe not all the right things. First and foremost those of us who are in our early 20’s and grew up with the original cartoon and spent endless quarters in the arcades hammering on the old Konami cabinet will find a lot to like about the new film as seeing the mutant turtles on the big screen again is enough to satisfy.

For newcomers to the series, TMNT offers an ample introduction to the turtles, their master, and their fallen foe, The Shredder, who is reduced to nothing more than a two line explanation. In fact, that’s the reason many fans of the franchise will be disappointed with this 2007 update, many of the elements we remember have been taken out and a new, cliché-riddled storyline has been put in place concerning monsters from another dimension and an immortal business man with unknown intentions.

While a majority of the film focuses on the turtles and the fallout from the Shredder’s death (being a sequel to the live action films of the early 1990’s) one can consider this a reintroduction to the characters and a way to get them back on the big screen and set up sequels, this update is lacking in many things we would have expected to see. After abolishing Krang and the Technodrome from the live action films and putting a laughable third installment out, the fans of the franchise can only hope that Mirage and the film’s license holders come back to the comics, and even the recent cartoon series which provides a reasonable update to the characters as well.

With that said, TMNT is an enjoyable way to spent 87 minutes at the theater if you aren’t expecting brilliant storytelling and an endless supply of jokes. Few and far between does the humor resonate with the audience and, as mentioned before, the story could have been a little more relevant to long time fans of the series that would have killed to see a Shredder vs. Splinter match up on the big screen again.

What TMNT does very well is animation and the designers at IMAGI should be commended in as many ways possible for bringing the unique style they have devised to the big screen with the flair and technical prowess the studio has. One particular action scene has Raphael and Leonardo squaring off on the rooftop in the rain. As the camera moves around and eventually ends up peering up from the ground, the real beauty of the movie is shown.

For being as anticipated as it was TMNT does disappoint in some respects, but when you look at it as the first part of a new silver-screen legacy for the mutated turtles you can see where the creators were going and how they might be able to really turn on the nostalgia with some very ambiguous lines towards the end of the film. Could the Shredder or Krang be back the next time around? If they want to keep the fans enticed in this rebirth, they had better plan on it.

I’m a huge James Bond fan, and I only know one other person who can give me a run for my money when it comes to geeking out and turning into a total fanboy when it comes to 007. I also consider Pierce Brosnan to be perfectly suited for the role of James Bond, he embodied the role during his tour of duty by providing the action we needed, the quips we craved, and wooing the women we wished we could have. While the series itself succumbed to self-parody and more and more outlandish plots and gadgets, the character was still intact for the most part.

When Casino Royale was first announced (sans Brosnan) you can expect my reservations. The series was rebooting, a new James Bond was being brought in, and the entire series itself was being refreshed to something many in the younger generation were unfamiliar with. There’s no Q, there’s no Moneypenny, but there is the same M? Imagine the confusion of younger fans coming off of the CGI-laced Die Another Day into the more grounded, nearly-gadget-less Royale.

All those fears are unfounded, however, as Casino Royale proves to be one of the, if not the, best James Bond film yet with a perfectly cast lead, a great supporting line-up, interesting story, twists, turns, cars, women, guns, and explosions, James Bond returns to the big screen with a huge bang focusing in on the character and his beginnings rather than invisible cars and laser watches.

A lot needs to be said for Daniel Craig who steps into the role as the sixth actor to play the title character. Craig brings everything to the role and gives the audience more than we could expect. His cocky, arrogant beginnings are believably portrayed and his hardened, deep eyes give the impression of a cold-blooded killer but also the emotion we know Bond still relies on early in his career. Enough speculation and critical analysis of the actor seems totally unwarranted and those who adamantly spoke out against him in the beginning are dining on a feast of crow right now as Craig IS James Bond. I won’t go so far as to say he is better than Sean Connery in the role, as I’ll need several more viewings of Casino Royale and it subsequent sequels to see the range of the character, but based solely on Royale, Craig easily passes Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Brosnan, and George Lazenby.

The movie itself, as previously mentioned, focuses in on the beginnings of 007 and his career at MI6. From the beginning of the film you can see the emotionally driven, arrogant son of a bitch who opposes authority and seems to work for himself. As the movie ends, and Craig delivers the catch phrase we’ve all been longing to hear for 2 hours and 24 minutes you can see a change in the character as all that he has known has fallen apart around him, his emotional attachments severed, and his sense of duty heightened. The movie grounds itself more in reality (for the most part) with out any of the outlandish (and totally unbelievable) gadgets that cropped up in the ladder installments of the series. The gadgets that you do find here are entirely possibly in the real world, as is the rest of the film.

Everything about the film was in question two years ago and now, 24 months later, the only question we have is how long until we get to see 007 on the big screen again. Casino Royale is good, scary good, so good in fact that after the credits began to roll with the familiar theme in the background all I could think about was if there was another showtime tonight and how do I get tickets.

With so many excellent parts to the film it’s nearly impossible to touch on them all, but Casino Royale is a film that needs to be experienced by both fans and non-fans of the franchise. Thinking of it as an introduction to the spy movie genre or an extension of a 40 year franchise, either way Casino Royale ranks as one of the best times you will have at the movies and easily the best film of 2006.

See it once, then see it again. His name is Bond, James Bond, and he’s back and better than ever.

Most sequels or sequels of sequels tend to lose some of the spice that made the original movie worthy of having a sequel in the first place. There are franchises which buck this trend and those that follow a rollercoaster ride of mediocrity and glory as the series progresses through the years. The Saw series is a good example of the ladder with both the original and first sequel building up and progressively getting better with more inventive deaths, clever schemes, and twist endings that really made you think in the end. Saw III, the latest in the annual Halloween series, manages to hold the bar firmly in place for the series, but doesn’t raise it any particular way for the franchise or the genre.

Saw III picks up almost immediately after the events of Saw II, and as an added bit of closure we’re treated to how the second (and first) movies really ended by the screenwriters desire to tie up some loose ends. Granted they do leave a few questions, but we ultimately figure out what happened to Adam (the photographer from the first film) and Detective Matthews (who was last seen chained in a very familiar looking bathroom). Luckily for us the events that took place in the previous film are not only touched upon, they are a big component of the overall movie’s plot. Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) is still very much near death and Amanda (Shawnee Smith) is still working as his protégé in continuing on his work.

Unlike the first two movies the main “conflict” with a character or characters being put in an impossible situation (two men trapped in a bathroom, a group of people in a locked down house infected with a virus) plays second fiddle to Jigsaw himself and his final elaborate games to test the will of a person. I’ll be honest and say that I was surprised by the movie’s final revelation about who each of these people was and who was being tested for what. While the twist is no where near as good as the original, or as out-of-the-blue as the second film, it sits well with the viewer as you pick up bits and pieces along the way. We almost called part of the ending about half way through the film, but the ultimate climax and finale were a surprise.

The beauty of this series is it knows what it is, it knows the genre, and it knows who its fans are and it doesn’t bend over backwards to appease those who are not part of its core audience. The filmmakers at Twisted Pictures and Lionsgate know that male teenagers and early twentysomethings will turn out in droves for a film like this around Halloween and are prepared for the most obscene and grotesque display they can get a ticket for. These movies are cheap to produce, very cleverly marketed, and appease a devoted fan base.

Saw III lacks the horror aspect of most of the films in the genre in which the purpose is not to scare you, you won’t find any jump-out-of-your-seat moments here, but what you will find are plenty of reasons to cringe at the screen as decaying pigs become liquid, bone meets skull, and explosives meeting the human body. Saw III handles all three of the previous statements wonderfully and delivers a rewarding experience.

The second sequel, however, may not be as accessible as the first, or even second, films in the series for new viewers to be introduced. With so many flashbacks to the previous two movies, and the events leading up to them, and after them, this is definitely a more fan oriented film geared towards bringing closure and setting up the next sequel. How the will pull off nearly-greenlit Saw IV is anyone’s guess after the finale of this installment, but I can honestly saw I’ll be in line, ticket in hand, next year at this very same time.

Jackass: Number Two lives up to everything we would expect after the first time and a successful TV show. The sequel is bigger and certainly pushes the limits of what we might consider good taste, but its all for a laugh, so, in the end, it works.

Like the original film, Number Two is book ended by some scripted sequences: a running of the bulls and a musical number with plenty of bodily injury thrown in for good measure. Between those we are treated to some of the most cringe inducing stunts even printed on celluloid. So many of the bits hit that it becomes almost impossible to hear the dialog spoken before and after jokes because the theater is uproariously applauding or laughing too loud. Not that this is a bad thing.

Truth be told, Number Two, much like the first time, is best seen with a large group of friends in a packed theater. Half of the experience is the atmosphere created by hundreds of jackass fans all sharing sympathy pains or laughing hysterically at the jokes. Even the dreaded “Junior High Explosion” that seems to ruin the movie-going experience week after week is kept in check (partly because of the film’s R-rating and because being noisy is part of the game).

Johnny Knoxville and the guys have upped the ante on themselves with the second installment in the series with some very creative pranks and some harking back to the old school roots of the series. Standouts include the Terrorist Cab Ride near the end of the film where one of the crew is dressed up to look Middle Eastern and asks to go to the airport spouting anti-American propaganda. Little does he know that the cabbie is, in fact, director Jay Chandrasekhar. Chandrasekhar stops the cab in a parking lot and pulls a gun causing laughter abounds from those in on the joke and chilling fear from those not.

Old school send-ups include fun with shopping carts, mini-bikes, and various other objects attached to what appear to be oxygen tanks and let loose off of a ramp into a lake. Every skit in the film seems to click even the most disgusting ones like director/producer Spike Jonze walking around in make up pretending to be an elderly woman whose robe keeps on opening up.

Jackass: Number Two successfully continues the long-concluded MTV franchise on the big screen. The film represents some of the grossest moments you’ll ever see in a film, but it also provides some of the biggest laughs of the year. It certainly won’t win any awards, but its definitely a film to see, providing you liked the series and can stand to see grown men vomiting uncontrollably.

Final Destination delivers everything you would expect from a horror movie sequel, but this series has a lot more to live up to due to the cleverness of the first two movies in the series and the most inventive deaths this side of Friday the 13^th. Sure, the series hasn’t really broken any new ground, or gone gangbusters at the box office, but Final Destination and its two sequels are guilty pleasures that you watch with a group of friends as you see just how twisted the screenwriters can be towards these characters.

If that sounds morbid, it should.

Whereas the first movie focuses on an airplane tragedy, and the second a multi-car pile up on the interstate, the third takes a smaller, although still lethal, approach. This time a rollercoaster is the ride of death and like the previous two movies; one character has the creepy premonition that all the kids looking for fun are going to die.

The series has always been one of my personal favorites simply because it’s a balls-to-the-walls affair when it comes to picking off characters one by one. Sure, the writing outside the deaths isn’t the best, but when you see how much thought it put into some of these sequences, you can’t help but feel a little bit giddy, no matter how disturbed you feel afterwards. If pieces of shrapnel and airbags hadn’t made you weary of just about anything in this world, you’ll want to stay away from forklifts, home improvement stores, giant signs, and tanning beds. It goes without saying that this is one bloody movie.

Director James Wong (Final Destination) doesn’t skimp when it comes to knocking off characters in globs of blood, in fact several characters get sprayed on more than one occasion in a visceral rain shower of bits of brain.

After Final Destination 3 opens with the customary, over-the-top disaster, the movie does sink into a bit of a rut between deaths. The two “main” characters come up with an explanation too fast as to what is going on, presumably by a simple Google search. They also bite on the theory without any doubt in their minds which seems like the death scenes took too much of the writers time and they had to fill in the rest by making the remaining characters hyper-intelligent. Wendy (NAME), the girl who sees this all happen, is prone to crying at just about everything, and seems strangely comfortable with her position of identifying who’s next and how they will die.

Overall the rest of the film is, again, what you would expect for a cheaply made horror movie. The special effects are adequate, as the series has never been known for spending lots of money in this department. The acting is two dimensional for just about everyone as the characters are genre staples like the cool, confident jock, brainless girls, and the angry goth kids. You won’t find anything that breaks the genre barriers here, and by not expecting anything, this sits pretty comfortable with you.

Final Destination 3 is a fun movie to watch, and while it isn’t as good as the first or second films in the series, it still serves the audience well by giving them what they want, cool, innovate, and painful death scenes spliced in-between profanity, nudity, and sexual tension. Really, what more could you ask for on a Friday night at the movies?

Sequels in this day and age are lucky to have half the inspiration that made their predecessors worth a movie-goers time. Good sequels have always been few and far between, but over the last few years we’ve been cursed with atrocious sequels, let alone horror film sequels, that bring nothing to the table other than a way for the movie studios to make money.

Imagine my surprise when Saw II actually managed to be a good movie which only accentuated the fact that it was a good horror movie sequel.

Make no mistakes about it, Saw II was made to cash in on the success of the original, but never before have you seen a movie purely made for the money turn out so well in the end. Made on the cheap, just like the original, the film should make back its entire production and marketing budget in its opening week of release.

Saw II picks up right where the first film left off, well, some time has passed, but Jigsaw, the serial killer who never actually kills, is still building engineering marvels used to split skulls and disembody his victims. The film opens up with a Jigsaw related murder in the old-school, awe-inspiring type of death we used to see in the inventive 80’s. Jigsaw leaves a clue this time for Detective Eric Matthews (Donnie Walhberg) to find him, which he does. What Matthews only comes to realize, after finding Jigsaw, is that several people have been locked into a house and a deadly nerve agent is floating in the air. They have two hours to live, but some of them won’t make it that long.

Writers Darren Lynn Bousman and Leigh Whannell have really outdone themselves with this smart sequel by topping the killing games of the original. Whereas Saw featured two men chained inside a decrepit bathroom and told of the history of the killer via Danny Glover’s character, Saw II puts us right in the middle of the “games.” The cast is composed of mostly throwaway characters who will only serve as canon fodder throughout the film. We aren’t introduced to many of them, and for good reason, within an hour most of them are dead.

Aside from the no-name cast, sans Franky G (Johnny Zero, The Italian Job) and Beverly Mitchell (7^th Heaven), Saw II suffers badly from horribly-cliché-ridden dialog and awful delivery. The character’s aren’t anything but standard 2D cut-outs of other seen in many movies over the year, but it’s the over-arching story and a perplexingly smart killer that gives Saw II its edge.

Much has been said about Saw II‘s ending and how some believe it to be contrived only to further the series as a money-making option for Lion’s Gate and others, such as myself, thought it was very well done, but on the border of being cringe worthy. You certainly don’t see it coming, but if anything, the film leaves you guessing like a good episode of 24, always thinking that no everyone is what they seem and there’s more to the picture than what you can see.

Where The Ring Two felt it necessary to merely tread water on the familiar ground of the series, Saw II seems to be very content with reinventing itself in each subsequent sequel. Hopefully though, unlike Friday the 13^th before it, this series doesn’t approach things too outlandishly to the point where you drive away your core audience (anyone remember the “thrilling” climax of Jason Takes Manhattan?).

Sure it was made for the money and had some lofty shoes to live up to, but Saw II may be one of the most surprising hits of the year because it had virtually nothing going for it other than the installed base of the horror genre and managed to surprise a lot of people, myself included.

Is it a spectacular horror film? No, but it sure is a darn good time at the movies, and a Halloween weekend well spent, plus, based on its early success, we have Saw III to look forward to next year, even if it is only for the money.