There are two things that make for a bad combination. Fan boys who don’t know when to let go. And greedy studios who are more than happy to beat the life out of something if they think enough people will still buy it.
Alejandro was a cool character. He was a lawyer who had something horrific happen to his family which drove him to very dark places so that he could avenge their deaths. Pretty simple premise.
He gets his revenge, but likely will forever be a haunted, changed man. The end. A story that all humans can relate to regardless of place or history. A timeless tale.
But no no no….the two bad elements I mentioned before can’t have that. They won’t be happy until the very name of Alejandro or Sicario makes us groan in disgust or annoyance. They won’t be happy until what was a positive memory…becomes a negative memory. It’s a mental disorder inherent in some geeks I haven’t quite puzzled out yet; this compulsion to destroy that which one claims to love. I just don’t understand the motivation. Are their lives so pervasively barren that they desperately crave any morsel of entertainment regardless of the destructive cost? Do they find Hollywood so spectacularly devoid of cinematic nourishment that they will gluttonously accept second-hand slop as long as it holds some remote semblance of its predecessor? Alas, maybe it’s a combination of both.
So they basically want to turn Alejandro Gillick into some sort of spanish ‘Punisher’. Even worse, they are dipping into the ‘pair them up with a kid’ routine. As is the case with most sequels everything is ‘doubled’ in some misguided notion that will make the story better, perhaps even, to justify its existence. The stakes are ‘higher’. Characters are more ‘evil’ or ‘callous’. You see now we have a caravan…but this time the caravan is attacked by missiles…isn’t that cool? No.
Sigh…Sicario was a good film. Alejandro was a good character. That should be enough. Instead of destroying the memory of them we should be creating new stories and new characters.
I suppose that’s asking too much.
Sicario 2: Soldado starring Josh Brolin, Benicio Del Toro, and Matthew Modine opens in theaters June 29, 2018
