Overused plotlines in cinema

[Ursa major]

And, of course, that film is a remake of an earlier one, starring Charles Bronson and directed by Michael Winner.


I've just looked at the earlier film's Wiki page, which inlcudes this:

Vincent Canby of The New York Times described The Mechanic as a "solemn, rather spurious action melodrama". Noting the "father son rivalry" between Arthur and Steve and picking up on the "latent homosexual bond" between the two, Canby concluded that the film was "non-stop, mostly irrelevant physical spectacle" and pondered what a different director might have done with the same material.

my bolding




(I don't recall much about the earlier 1970s film, but I do remember watching it on the TV.)

 

[Sourdust]

There are only so many stories to tell

Yes - plot is only one ingredient in a film, and not necessarily the most important one. Most of the classic genres were based on a handful of plot permutations. What makes individual examples interesting, as with genre fiction, are stylistic choices, variations in the cinematic 'grammar', things such as editing, shot length, production design.

It is also possible, of course, that the sense that Hollywood's output is particularly thin at the moment is an illusion of perspective, but I doubt it. Looking at the US box office top 10 for 2012 (the benchmark of what is made for mass consumption), we find three superhero titles (four if you count James Bond), three YA fantasy adaptations (Hunger Games, Hobbit, Twilight), and two animations (three if you count Seth MacFarlane's Ted).

The profile for 2002 is very similar (Spider-Man, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars Ep. II, Harry Potter). If we go back another decade to 1992, we also find animations and superheroes (Disney's Aladdin; Batman Returns), but also two relatively witty comedies (Sister Act, Wayne's World), a decent thriller (Basic Instinct), and Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven coming in at number 11.

Maybe the difference isn't that great, but there does seem to be one. Of course, the best of even the commercial stuff is rarely to be found in the top 10: in 1982, The Thing came in at no. 42. Many would hypothesise an inverse correlation between originality and popularity, which is probably generally true, but then things like Inception confound that assumption.