Even when the older ones were bad, or subpar cash grabs themselves, like The Mummy Returns, they still felt like they had some life to them. Usually we called this camp. Now the bad ones rarely have even that little spark. All super serious, dour monotony, punctuated at most by a few half-hearted "jokes."

God I wish they still made blockbusters this way. I know, technology advances, but I'm not even talking about that. Just the vibrancy, the suffusion of color, the creativity, even in stuff that retreads old ground. And above all the feeling of being competently made. Today it's one dull, grey, cookie cutter, carbon…