2007 Kaedrin Movie Awards: Best Sequel & Biggest Disappointment

The nominations for the 2007 Kaedrin Movie Awards were announced last week. This week, I’ll be announcing two winners every day, culminating in a post with my top 10 movies of the year and possibly some other wrap-up posts. Here are the awards for Best Sequel and Biggest Disappointment:

Best Sequel: The Bourne Ultimatum

This wasn’t a particularly difficult decision. After all, most sequels aren’t all that great, and this year was no exception. The Bourne movies are indeed quite good, and director Paul Greengrass has managed to make two very good sequels to the original. His fast cuts and shaky camera may annoy some, but Greengrass does a good job of it. It’s easy to dismiss such filmmaking until you see a film that attempts the same style and utterly fails (*cough, cough* Transformers *cough*). Anyway, it’s not like there was much in the way of competition this year.

Biggest Disappointment: Spider-Man 3

This is the only “negative” category, and it’s actually a difficult one. Last year, I chose a movie I actually kinda liked, but which didn’t live up to lofty expectations. There are a couple of nominees like that this year, but the winner is more of a bad film that didn’t live up to expectations. The first two Spider-Man movies were brilliant, and far exceeded my expectations. The third installment fell flat, succumbing to the typical superhero trap of introducing far too many characters (notably villains, though the character count is way up overall). Then there’s also the bizzarre central portion where Peter Parker becomes a tool and does a dance number or something. The first two movies had moments like that, but they were only moments, and they actually helped serve the story. This movie is just a mess.

On deck: Best Action Sequences and Best Plot Twist/Surprise