In Hollywood, there are many axioms to moneymaking, but the most precious is that you must keep everything that's good in the old while infusing it with original elements in the new. Sequels are the brainchild of this model, bringing the comfort of familiarity to new concepts and providing an outlet for studios to milk old franchises dry.

Glancing ahead at 2007, that's a lot of milking. "Shrek the Third." "Live Free or Die Hard." "Alien Vs. Predator 2" (seriously). As of yesterday, there's 22 sequels slated for the coming year, up from 19 last year and part of a growing creative complacency in Hollywood.

Many of them were hits ("Pirates of the Caribbean" was the ringleader), a handful were embarrassments ("Basic Instinct 2" is the go-to) and almost none lived up to the franchise they sought to continue or revive. Overall, they paint a bleak picture for the coming year.

The blockbuster sequels started off with reasonable promise last May, when Tom Cruise returned as Ethan Hunt for "Mission: Impossible III." With rumors of Cruise's sanity looming, the skepticism was palpable. After 2000's "Mission: Impossible II," directed by John Woo ("Face/Off"), it wasn't a surprise that it took six years before people got it off their minds.

That said, what "M:I II" lacked - and "M:I III" had in spades - was high-octane drama to fuel the story from beginning to end. Cruise's faux-maverick attempt to prevent a foaming-at-the-mouth Philip Seymour Hoffman from escaping at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge was just as wonderfully preposterous, if not more so, than the original movie's famous scene where Hunt retrieves classified data while hovering inches above the ground. It's in many ways a more frivolous movie than its often serious-minded precursors, a calculated risk that turned out to be a perfect fit for the franchise.

That promise was promptly destroyed. Next came "X-Men: The Last Stand," which promised flashier powers, a host of new mutants and a world war between mutants and humans. Sweet!

Not really. The film is a classic example of putting too much garnish in an already good dish. Where "M:I III" had a new director that resuscitated the franchise, "X-Men" lost its guiding force - director Bryan Singer - to "Superman Returns." The new director, Brett Ratner, is infamous for his preference for pyrotechnics over storytelling, but "X3" moved at such a breakneck pace that you couldn't enjoy the FX or the story. Key players Cyclops and Xavier were sacrificed needlessly in the hope that the up-and-coming characters were ready to fill the void. They weren't.

And they kept coming. "Superman Returns" was alternatively a Christian allegory and a gay allegory. "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" was said to be the movie everyone saw but no one liked. "Saw III" had fingers as part of its official title. FINGERS.

Here's where we enter the obligatory "Godfather: Part II" part of this argument - that sometimes sequels are not only better than the original, but actually enhance it - but the current situation is the worst it's ever been. It's a material manifestation of the idea that Hollywood is so creatively bankrupt that it will not only shovel shit but do it like it's peddling worthwhile product - Disney got Johnny Depp a Golden Globe nomination for doing a bizarre caricature of his own performance for three hours. Is this really all we have to look forward to?

To save you from answering that question, a friendly reminder that 2007 - assuming it avoids the pitfalls of last year - boasts new releases from the best modern film franchises we have. "Harry Potter." "Spider-Man." The Jason Bourne films. There's even a sequel to "Elizabeth" in sight. Despite the intimating quantity of sequels, if ever there was a crop to turn things around creatively, this has to be it.

After the bleak season that was 2006, the coming year could be the nail in the coffin, but we say cling to the little hope we have left. Easy as it is to admonish, lining up for a summer blockbuster as if it were an event is a singular experience, and there's not reason this summer can't our salvation. . Right?

Sequels suck. Right?

That generalization can be forgiven, but there are many more exceptions than you think. And we're not just talking about "The Godfather: Part II."

"Gremlins 2: The New Batch" (1990) - Tell me that flying bat gremlin didn't scare the shit out of you when you were little. This ingenious follow-up proves that sometimes, less isn't more. It's like they pitched 15 different movies and made every one.

"Scream 2" (1997) - "Scream" was the revolution, but Wes Craven's glossed-over film is a model for horror sequels (the 53 coming out next year, take note). "Roseanne's" Laurie Metcalf as a maternal psychopath? Clever. Courtney Cox's streaks?