A world the place heroes by no means die, the identical jokes by no means get outdated, and the odd numbered Star Trek films all the time stink
Sequels are nearly as outdated as Hollywood itself. Even earlier than talkies hit {the marketplace} in 1927, studios have been churning out follow-up films like The Fall of a Nation and Don Q, Son of Zorro. The development continued all through the Golden Age of Hollywood with The Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula’s Daughter, The Skinny Man Goes Dwelling, Mr. Belvedere Rings the Bell, Jolson Sings Once more, and Father’s Little Dividend. Blockbusters of the Seventies and Eighties like Star Wars, The Exorcist, Halloween, Ghostbusters, Batman, and Raiders of the Misplaced Ark launched movie franchises that proceed to today.
It’s straightforward to know why risk-averse studios are so desirous to green-light sequels. If a method labored as soon as earlier than, why not merely attempt once more? It’s additionally a lot simpler to market a well-known story than it’s to introduce one thing new. The one downside is that valuable few sequels in Hollywood historical past have ever lived as much as the unique. And for each Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Again and Terminator 2: Judgment Day that really justify their existence, there are about 300 films like Weekend at Bernie’s II and Son of the Masks that, to place it kindly, don’t.
An inventory of the worst sequels in historical past may very well be nearly infinite, and nearly too straightforward. Few individuals turned on Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles or American Pie Presents: The Bare Mile and anticipated some nice masterpiece. So in selecting our listing of the worst film sequels, we restricted the listing to films that appeared on the time like they may truly be worthwhile. We admit it’s very subjective. And it’s straightforward to fault us for anticipating something respectable out of the latter-day Die Laborious or Terminator films, however they one way or the other managed to get our hopes up a minimum of a bit of each single time. (In the event that they made Terminator 37, we’d nonetheless stroll in feeling hopeful. We’re fools.)
Please be part of us on this unhappy journey by means of Hollywood historical past the place Michael Meyers is rarely really lifeless, John McClane transforms from an everyday police officer into an immortal killing machine, the odd numbered Star Trek films all the time suck, and we wait in useless for the day any Jurassic Park sequel is even midway watchable.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
Picture Credit score: Robert Zuckerman/Warner Bros.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines had loads working in opposition to it earlier than the cameras even began rolling. The primary two Terminator films have been the brainchild of James Cameron. He wrote them, directed them, and oversaw each element of their manufacturing. He’s additionally a genius that’s principally by no means made a foul film. However Cameron wasn’t concerned with Terminator 3. The movie additionally didn’t have Linda Hamilton or Edward Furlong on board to play Sarah and John Connor. The one factor it had from the primary two films (moreover a cameo from Earl Boen as Dr. Peter Silberman) was the Terminator himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger. And as we’ve discovered from Batman and Robin, Finish of Days, The Sixth Day, and plenty of different turkeys, Schwarzenegger alone doesn’t assure an awesome film. And that is removed from an awesome film. It’s a reprise of T2, the place yet one more superior Terminator comes again in time, performed by Kristanna Loken, and John Connor (now Nick Stahl) has to discover a solution to keep alive with assist from one other T-850 Terminator, performed by Schwarzenegger. There’s nearly no scene value remembering up till the very finish when a nuclear warfare begins and John Connor fulfills his destiny by taking command. It’s a genuinely chilling second, however it may’t make up for the almost two hours that precede it. To be truthful, nothing was ever going to high T2. It’s one of many best sequels in Hollywood historical past, rivaled solely by The Godfather II, however Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines doesn’t even come shut.
Staying Alive (1983)
Picture Credit score: Everett Assortment
The dance sequences in 1977’s Saturday Night time Fever are among the most iconic pictures within the historical past of movie. However they’re just some fleeting minutes in an in any other case darkish film a couple of Brooklyn teenager (performed by John Travolta) determined to enhance his lot in life. Gene Siskel thought-about it the best film within the historical past of Hollywood. By the point we meet up with Travolta’s Tony Manero character in 1983’s Staying Alive, he’s a waiter who goals of Broadway stardom. Sylvester Stallone is the director, and he invited his brother Frank to contribute songs to the soundtrack. And with all due respect to Frank Stallone, his work doesn’t precisely stand as much as the Bee Gees. (They’ve some deeply unmemorable songs of their very own on the soundtrack.) However dangerous music is much from the largest downside in Staying Alive. There’s merely no coronary heart to the story, and Manero finds himself appearing in an abysmal Broadway musical that looks like a Flock of Seagulls fever dream. “Staying Alive is a sequel with no understanding of what made its predecessor work,” Janet Maslin wrote in The New York Instances. “The primary movie was humorous and touching, powered by a phenomenally profitable rating. This one is clumsy, mean-spirited, and amazingly unmusical.”
Jurassic Park: The Misplaced World (1997)
Picture Credit score: Warner Bros.
With the very huge exception of the Indiana Jones films, Steven Spielberg has largely resisted the lure of sequels all through his lengthy profession. He might have made a fortune directing follow-up films to Jaws, E.T., and Shut Encounters of the Third Type, however he knew they’d by no means reside as much as the originals, and that his time could be higher spent on new initiatives. However 1993’s Jurassic Park was such a mega-hit that he went in opposition to his higher judgment and agreed to direct 1997’s The Misplaced World: Jurassic Park. It’s an adaptation of a novel that Michael Crichton reluctantly churned out in 1995 in order that this very film might exist. It’s about one other island the place the Jurassic Park dinosaurs have been bred. Jeff Goldblum heads there alongside Julianne Moore and Vince Vaughn. The dinos assault. Folks die. Ultimately, a T. rex is ready unfastened in San Diego. All of it feels very humdrum and lacks any sense of surprise discovered within the authentic. It made a ton of cash, and so they’re within the midst of making a seventh Jurassic Park proper now, however solely the primary one is a genuinely good film. The sequels are all various levels of horrible.
Unhealthy Santa 2 (2016)
Picture Credit score: Jan Thijs/Broad Inexperienced Footage/Miramax.
When comedy sequels really work, which is exceedingly uncommon, they arrive out inside a few years of the unique, and are assembled by the identical artistic staff. Invoice & Ted’s Bogus Journey and Addams Household Values are the gold normal right here. They hit theaters inside two years of their predecessors, and the important thing behind-the-scenes gamers (Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon for Invoice & Ted, Barry Sonnenfeld for Addams Household) have been again. Unhealthy Santa 2 got here out 13 years after Unhealthy Santa, with out the assistance of authentic director Terry Zwigoff or writers Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. They did have Unhealthy Santa himself, Billy Bob Thortnon, together with Tony Cox as his conniving associate, and even former baby actor Brett Kelly reprising his Santa-obsessed Thurman Merman character. The outdated gang reunites to tug off one other Christmas heist, however the soiled jokes simply don’t land on this one. “There’s a going-through-the-motions vibe to the entire affair,” wrote Rolling Stone’s David Worry. “The unique believed in its sodden, everyone-sucks with each ounce of its hardened, pitch-black coronary heart — satirically, its horribleness made it that rather more humanistic (and hilarious). The sequel is nearer to idiot’s coal: You may blow the skinny patina of painted darkness off it with a breeze and discover there’s nothing beneath.”
Teen Wolf Too (1987)
Picture Credit score: Everett Assortment
To be very clear, the unique Teen Wolf is much from an awesome film. However Michael J. Fox had greater than sufficient Again to the Future-era attraction to tug off the position as a nerd turned werewolf who turns into a highschool basketball star and unlikely women man. Sadly, Fox is nowhere to be seen within the sequel. It stars Jason Bateman because the cousin of his character. He goes to school, discovers he’s additionally a werewolf, and makes use of his powers to win boxing matches. “School Boxer Transforms Into Werewolf” ought to have generated headlines all throughout the globe, however it’s handled as little greater than a regional curiosity on this horrid film. “The pacing is near-cataleptic and the film’s supposed comedian spotlight is a frog combat within the biology lab,” wrote Michael Wilmington within the Los Angeles Instances. “Isn’t that simply what you’re dying to see and listen to? Unhealthy dialogue, lugubriously paced; terrible jokes about werewolves, and guffawing actors churlishly hurling round a whole lot of little frogs?”
Males in Black: Worldwide (2019)
Picture Credit score: Giles Keyte/Sony Footage
If any film franchise was poised to create a cinematic universe, it was Males in Black. There’s actually a whole galaxy of wacky aliens to discover, and a small military of Males in Black unfold throughout Earth to battle them. If Sony dealt with this IP correctly, we may very well be 10 seasons right into a Males in Black cable present, eight seasons into an animated program, and someplace round spinoff film 12 or 13. However their first try to maneuver past the Will Smith/Tommy Lee Jones film trilogy was 2019’s Males in Black: Worldwide, starring Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, Rebecca Ferguson, Liam Neeson, and Kumail Nanjiani. It facilities round a London Males in Black workplace, and the seek for a strong weapon hidden someplace on the planet. It grossed simply sufficient to presumably break even, however not almost sufficient to justify one other considered one of this stuff. ”It has been 17 years since Males in Black was a sizzling property, and the intervening hole has carried out nothing to revive curiosity in it,” wrote movie critic James Berardinelli. “Whoever spearheaded this half-hearted resurrection ought to be fitted with a golden parachute. For many who keep in mind the Males in Black films fondly, stick along with your reminiscences. Seeing this newest installment is extra more likely to degrade than improve them.”
Airplane 2: The Sequel (1982)
When it comes to comedy sequels, the temptation to easily recreate the precise construction of the unique film, together with the entire signature gags, is simply too robust for many filmmakers to disregard. That’s why the genius trio of David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker opted in opposition to making a sequel to Airplane! so they might commit their time to creating the TV collection Police Squad. That present — which ultimately morphed into the Bare Gun film franchise — can also be why Leslie Nielsen wasn’t free to look in Airplane 2: The Sequel. It did reunite Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, and Lloyd Bridges, however writer-director Ken Finkleman merely doesn’t have the identical comedic instincts as Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker. (His prior film was Grease 2. Want we are saying extra?) He wrote a screenplay a couple of lunar shuttle headed to the moon, however it’s principally only a straight remake of Airplane! minus about 500 laughs. The one advantage of the entire fiasco is that Bare Gun exists as a result of Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker have been sensible sufficient to keep away from this film. You received’t see both of the Bare Gun sequels on this listing. In contrast to Airplane 2: The Sequel, they’re each extraordinarily humorous.
Deadly Weapon 4 (1998)
Picture Credit score: ©Warner Bros/Everett Assortment
If we have been making an inventory of one of the best sequels in Hollywood historical past, Deadly Weapon 2 could be close to the highest of the listing. The third one was barely underwhelming, however the collection didn’t crap out till the fourth one arrived in 1998. By this level, Joe Pesci and Rene Russo have been a part of the Deadly Weapon household together with collection stars Mel Gibson and Danny Glover. Chris Rock and Jet Li got here on board for the fourth chapter, cramming in so many huge names they barely match on the poster. On this one, Riggs and Murtaugh battle an Asian counterfeiter/slave dealer. Glover is past “too outdated for this shit” by this one, contemplating that his character deliberate on retiring from the police power a decade earlier, and it looks like everyone seems to be simply going by means of the motions, and counting how a lot cash they’re making per second. The script was nowhere close to prepared when filming began, and that’s clear in most each body. “I felt like Deadly Weapon 4 was outtakes [from the previous movies],” wrote critic Roger Ebert, “stuff they didn’t use earlier, pieced collectively right into a film that doesn’t actually, in its coronary heart, consider it’s vital.”
Iron Man 2 (2010)
The primary Iron Man film without end modified Hollywood. It marked the start of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the beginning of a broader superhero fixation that grips the {industry} to today, and a brand new daybreak for the profession of Robert Downey Jr. However when it got here time to make a second Iron Man film in 2010, simply two years after the unique, Marvel was nonetheless fine-tuning its film operation. Justin Theroux took over as screenwriter for this one, and he cobbled collectively a convoluted story the place Tony Stark is pressured to confront a severe well being scare, a strong new Russian enemy portrayed by Mickey Rourke, and pressures that got here after the general public discovered of his true identification. “Every part enjoyable and terrific about Iron Man, a mere two years in the past, has vanished with its sequel,” wrote the Hollywood Reporter’s Kirk Honeycutt. “As a replacement, Iron Man 2 has substituted noise, confusion, a number of villains, irrelevant stunts, and misguided story strains. A movie collection that started off with crucial and industrial success should accept solely the latter with this sequel.”
Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
Picture Credit score: Jasin Boland/Marvel Studios
The preliminary announcement that Natalie Portman was returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe for 2022’s Thor: Love and Thunder was greeted with actual pleasure. She’d been AWOL since 2013’s Thor: The Darkish World, regardless of taking part in a fairly large position within the saga as Jane Foster, Thor’s astrophysicist girlfriend. Pleasure grew when followers discovered she was going to lastly wield the hammer herself and tackle the position of the Mighty Thor. However then phrase slipped out that the character was battling stage 4 most cancers. The script tries to stability out this colossal bummer with an infinite collection of comedian sequences that creates a really odd general tone. If you happen to don’t consider us, hearken to Thor himself, Chris Hemworth: “I obtained caught up within the improv and the wackiness, and I grew to become a parody of myself,” he instructed Vainness Truthful this yr. “I didn’t stick the touchdown.”
Alien Resurrection (1997)
Picture Credit score: twentieth Century Fox Studios
The primary three Alien films have been directed by three of one of the best administrators of their time: Ridley Scott, James Cameron, and David Fincher. The third one was a letdown, since Fincher was nonetheless a novice, the studio didn’t totally belief him, and the screenplay was by no means actually completed. But it surely stays a David Fincher film that’s intermittently progressive and fascinating. The identical can’t be stated for 1997’s Alien Resurrection. It takes place on a army spaceship 200 years after Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley character died on the finish of Alien 3. She’s cloned from a drop of her blood, and one way or the other her reminiscences are intact. In addition they carry again the Xenomorph alien species, which is a really, very dangerous concept. (Haven’t these individuals heard concerning the occasions of the primary three films?) Evidently, the Xenomorphs develop, reproduce, and begin killing. Winona Ryder enters the story, and we ultimately be taught she’s a robotic. Ripley as soon as once more batters the shit out of the Xenomorph, however haven’t we seen this all earlier than? “It is a collection whose inspiration has come, gone, and been forgotten,” wrote Roger Ebert. “I’m aliened out.”
The Wonderful Spider-Man 2 (2014)
Picture Credit score: Columbia Footage
For some time, it was in style to quote Spider-Man 3 because the low level of the franchise. However time has been considerably form to Emo Spider-Man and his Pete Wentz haircut, and a small cult (in addition to infinite memes) have grown round its weirdness. And even if you happen to suppose Spider-Man 3 is a bloated sludge of a film with too many villains, it’s clearly superior to The Wonderful Spider-Man 2, which marked the untimely finish of the Andrew Garfield period. It’s the one the place Jamie Foxx performs Electro, Paul Giamatti takes on the Rhino position, the Inexperienced Goblin returns, and Gwen (performed by Emma Stone) falls to her demise. This was the fifth Spider-Man film in a 12-year interval, and all of it simply looks like a rehash of issues we’ve seen earlier than, together with an effort to arrange about six completely different spinoff films and sequels. “The studios and the producers have to separate the distinction — between excellence and adequacy, between darkness and lightweight, between seriousness and enjoyable,” Wesley Morris wrote on Grantland. “The Wonderful Spider-Man 2 may need been break up too far. It doesn’t style like something.”
U.S. Marshals (1998)
The large success of 1993’s The Fugitive meant a sequel was considerably inevitable, although any such undertaking was principally doomed from the beginning. There was no logical manner for Harrison Ford to be framed for a second homicide, escape from the regulation, and get chased round once more by Tommy Lee Jones. It will have been preposterous, and Ford was by no means going to signal on to such a factor. The one transfer was to ship Jones’ Samuel Gerard character and his staff of U.S. Marshals after one other unjustly accused man. That’s what occurred in 1998’s U.S. Marshals, the place Wesley Snipes takes over for Harrison Ford as the person on the run. The film was a modest hit, however it has aged terribly. Jones himself isn’t even keen to defend it as of late. “The factor that drove The Fugitive was that we weren’t chasing only a regular physician,” he instructed Rolling Stone in our 2023 oral historical past of The Fugitive. “No matter we have been doing, we have been chasing Harrison Ford, and I feel he was the engine of the film. With U.S. Marshals, we had a distinct director, had a distinct strategy, and it simply wasn’t … the film wasn’t pretty much as good as The Fugitive.” It’s unimaginable to argue with that.
Star Trek V: The Remaining Frontier (1989)
Picture Credit score: Paramount/Everett Assortment
The Star Trek movie franchise obtained off to an especially shaky begin with the snoozefest that’s 1979’s Star Trek: The Movement Image, which simply made 1982’s Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan all of the extra gorgeous. Star Trek III: The Search For Spock was a minor letdown in 1984, however phrases can barely describe our love for 1986’s Star Trek IV: The Voyage Dwelling. That’s the bonkers time-travel one with the whales that’s as enjoyable to look at the 2 hundredth time as the primary. Leonard Nimoy was given the prospect to direct that one, which is why William Shatner demanded the director’s chair for Star Trek V: The Remaining Frontier. It’s concerning the seek for God on the heart of the universe and an evil Vulcan named Sybok, however it barely issues. Nothing concerning the film works, particularly the cringe scene of Spock, Kirk, and Bones singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” round a campfire. It was such a fiasco that 1991’s Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Nation was designed as a farewell to the OG forged.
Caddyshack 2 (1988)
Think about a model of Caddyshack with out Invoice Murray, Rodney Dangerfield, Lacey Underdall, a single quotable line or perhaps a single snigger. No matter involves thoughts is unquestionably nowhere close to as horrid as Caddyshack 2. Chevy Chase is the one returning forged member, and he’s joined by Robert Stack, Randy Quaid, Dyan Cannon, Chyna Phillips, and Dan Aykroyd within the thankless Invoice Murray position because the groundskeeper. That’s a very good forged, however they will’t save this horrible film a couple of millionaire shopping for the nation membership and turning it into an amusement park. Unique Caddyshack director Harold Ramis is credited as a co-writer, however he denounced the film in later years and stated he almost had his identify eliminated. The final word pink flag right here is that Dangerfield deemed this film beneath his requirements. It is a man (albeit a comic book genius) that took components in Meet Wally Sparks, My 5 Wives, and The 4th Tenor. He was keen to simply accept nearly any position that put him on the large display, however not Caddyshack 2. It was the suitable transfer. Nothing might have saved Caddyshack 2, not even Rodney.
Halloween Kills (2021)
Picture Credit score: Ryan Inexperienced
The unique Halloween, in 1978, is a horror traditional that paved the way in which for A Nightmare on Elm Road, Friday the thirteenth, and plenty of different slasher movies of the Eighties. However very like the franchises it spawned, Halloween begat sequel after sequel that fell flat in profound methods. A miracle occurred in 2018 when Jamie Lee Curtis returned to the fold for Halloween, which ignored each movie after the primary one, and managed to create real chills by displaying a grizzled, gray-haired Laurie Strode battling Michael Meyers but once more. They need to have left it there. The 2021 sequel isolates Strode in a hospital room for a lot of the film whereas Meyers wanders by means of the city of Haddonfield on yet one more killing spree. Acquainted faces from the unique film present up, together with Kyle Richards from The Actual Housewives of Beverly Hills, who acted within the first film as a baby. However the entire thing looks like a drained, pointless rerun. It was additionally designed to arrange a 3rd and remaining film, 2022’s Halloween Ends, however they need to have discovered the lesson of the primary film. You may’t simply preserve redoing this stuff again and again. Extra vital, a film ought to stand by itself. It shouldn’t really feel like connective tissue between two others.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
Picture Credit score: Marvel Studios
Future movie historians can have actual enjoyable making an attempt to pinpoint the precise second the Marvel Cinematic Universe jumped the shark. Some will level to Eternals in 2021, Thor: Love and Thunder in 2022, or Physician Unusual within the Multiverse of Insanity that very same yr. But it surely’s a protected wager that 2023’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania might be talked about many occasions. Marvel was pounding out content material at a livid clip when the film went into manufacturing, and sources have been unfold manner too skinny throughout quite a few TV reveals and films. Postproduction was rushed on this third Ant-Man film, and the special-effects staff was targeted on wrapping up Black Panther: Wakanda Perpetually. The end result was a film that actually didn’t look completed when it hit theaters. Once you throw in a complicated, drained plot about Ant-Man and his household by accident getting into the “Quantum Realm” (ask your 11-year-old nephew what which means), you’ve obtained an actual mess in your fingers. “Everybody simply form of wanders by means of this film — by means of its elaborate, colourful, cluttered, psychedelic-album-cover-style environments,” wrote New York critic Bilge Ebiri. “They sometimes crack jokes or cross their arms. Nothing appears to match. If you happen to instructed me that the actors had been shot earlier than the filmmakers determined what they might be or interacting with, I’d consider you.”
The Starvation Video games: Mockingjay — Half 1 (2014)
Picture Credit score: Murray Shut/Lionsgate/Everett Assortment
The Harry Potter franchise set a really dangerous precedent when the ultimate e book within the collection was become two films. This was justifiable within the Potter case, since that’s a 607-page e book that may have been robust to boil down to 1 satisfying film. But it surely made no narrative sense by any means to take the 390-page Mockingjay, the ultimate Starvation Video games novel, and stretch it into two films. The primary one clocks in at an agonizing 123 minutes, the place little or no occurs of any actual significance. Katniss and her buddies enter an underground district and put together for a grand revolution, however it’s all only a setup for the second chapter. (There’s additionally the issue that this can be a Starvation Video games film the place we don’t get the payoff of an precise Starvation Video games.) The film was a success and critics have been as soon as once more impressed by the efficiency of Jennifer Lawrence, however even director Francis Lawrence says it was mistaken to make two films out of 1 e book. “What I noticed on reflection — and after listening to all of the reactions and feeling the form of wrath of followers, critics, and other people on the break up — is that I noticed it was irritating,” he instructed Folks in 2023. “And I can perceive it.… I completely remorse [splitting the movies]. I completely do. I’m unsure everyone does, however I undoubtedly do.”
The Godfather Half III (1990)
It will be deeply unfair to place the third Godfather film on an inventory of the 50 worst sequels in Hollywood historical past. It’s a significantly better movie than its repute suggests, and inserting it alongside Alien vs. Predator or Weekend at Bernie’s 2 could be merciless. It additionally has maybe essentially the most quoted line (“Simply after I thought I used to be out … they pull me again in”) in any Godfather film. However this can be a listing of disappointing sequels, and expectations for this film have been simply off the charts. The Godfather is arguably the best film in historical past. The Godfather II is inarguably the best sequel in historical past. There was no manner a 3rd movie that got here 16 years after the second would do something however disappoint. The truth that Robert Duvall backed out over a wage dispute, and Winona Ryder give up shortly earlier than filming, inflicting director Francis Ford Coppola to offer his teenager daughter Sophia a key position, didn’t assist issues a lot. The film nonetheless reunited Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, and Talie Shire with director Coppola, and grossed $137 million, however to name it something wanting a disappointment could be mistaken.
Jaws 2 (1978)
Jaws 2 has one of many best taglines in historical past: “Simply while you thought it was protected to return within the water …” That’s nearly the one memorable factor concerning the film, which is about one other killer shark descending on Amity Island that Roy Scheider is pressured to battle. This time round, it almost kills his son earlier than he electrocutes it and as soon as once more saves the city. (Does work like this actually fall underneath the jurisdiction of the police chief?) Steven Spielberg was too busy engaged on Shut Encounters of the Third Type to direct it, however he additionally had little need to move again into the water after all of the difficulties he confronted making the primary one. He additionally knew that topping it could be unimaginable. To be very clear, the third and fourth Jaws films have been considerably worse. Jaws 2 fails in somewhat pedestrian methods. Jaws 3-D and Jaws: The Revenge fail in spectacularly inept (and infrequently hysterical) methods. However no person walked into both of these films pondering they have been seeing any type of masterpiece. Folks had excessive hopes for Jaws 2, and so they left deeply dissatisfied.
Ebook of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000)
The 1999 movie calendar was full of so many outstanding films that many critics are actually calling it one of many single best years in Hollywood historical past. And even in the midst of all of that brilliance, The Blair Witch Venture stood out. The “discovered footage” horror film was shot on a microbudget of simply $60,000, however nonetheless managed to scare the dwelling shit out of everybody who noticed it. A sequel was inevitable. Sadly, it utterly disregarded the DIY really feel of the unique, together with something that felt even remotely authentic regardless of being directed by Paradise Misplaced creator Joe Berlinger. We as an alternative get a really conventional horror flick a couple of group of Blair Witch Venture followers who head to the location of the primary film, Burkittsville, Maryland, and discover themselves battling an evil power. “Ebook of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 is a not a really lucid piece of filmmaking (and incorporates no Ebook of Shadows),” wrote Roger Ebert. “I suppose it appears clear sufficient to Berlinger, who co-wrote it and helped edit it, however one viewing shouldn’t be sufficient to make the fabric clear, and the fabric shouldn’t be intriguing sufficient, alas, to encourage a second viewing.”
Dwell Free or Die Laborious (2007)
Picture Credit score: Twentieth Century Fox
Die Laborious: With a Vengeance is among the best threequels within the historical past of motion films, largely as a result of they introduced again authentic Die Laborious director John McTiernan after leaving him out of the underwhelming second film. A fourth film didn’t materialize for an additional 12 years. This time round, Underworld director Les Wiseman was on the helm. He was working with a ridiculous script the place John McClane battles a cyberterrorist in Washington, D.C. Bruce Willis virtually has superpowers in it. At one second, he destroys a flying helicopter by driving a automobile into it. It’s so ridiculous that even Michael Scott on The Workplace couldn’t take pleasure in it. “Right here’s the factor about Die Laborious 4,” he stated in a single episode. “Die Laborious 1, the unique, John McClain is simply this regular man, you understand? He’s only a regular New York Metropolis cop who will get his toes minimize, he will get beat up. However he’s an on a regular basis man. In Die Laborious 4, he’s leaping a motorbike right into a helicopter within the air. You already know? He’s invincible. It’s simply type of misplaced from Die Laborious 1. It’s not Terminator.” For as soon as, Michael Scott is totally proper.
Main League II (1994)
Picture Credit score: Warner Bros.
Making a sequel to Main League wasn’t a loopy concept. We by no means even noticed the misfit group of Cleveland Indians play within the World Sequence within the authentic film, which stays among the best sports activities movies in historical past. And Main League II did handle to reunite the unique forged, with the only real exception of Wesley Snipes, who was changed by Omar Epps. The loopy concept of Main League II was downgrading the R ranking from the unique all the way in which to PG. It neutered the characters in each manner potential. Who needs a Ricky “Wild Factor” Vaughn who can’t swear? You wish to hear “locker-room speak” within the locker room. The film additionally felt like a bland rehash of the unique. “There has not often been such a steep and unusual decline between a film and its sequel because the one between the quick, foolish authentic and the dismal, boring Main League II,” Caryn James wrote in The New York Instances. “Whereas the primary movie ran riot with baseball cliches, this one plods alongside and nearly takes them critically.
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2017)
Picture Credit score: Peter Mountain/Disney
In 2003, Disney one way or the other turned its Mad Males-era Pirates of the Caribbean theme-park attraction right into a Johnny Depp film that grossed greater than $650 million. The primary two sequels racked up an astonishing $1 billion every, and earned surprisingly respectable critiques, contemplating the supply materials. However director Gore Verbinski stepped apart for the fourth film in favor of Rob Marshall, although it’s barely unfair accountable him for the bloated, painfully unfunny mess that’s Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. The franchise merely ran out of gasoline at this level, and no quantity of special-effects wizardry was going to alter that. “Its pleasures are so meager, its enjoyment of its personal innovations so pressured and false, that it turns into nearly the proper reverse of leisure,” wrote A.O. Scott in The New York Instances. “To insist in any other case is a variation on the sunk-cost fallacy. Because you exchanged cash for enjoyable, enjoyable is unquestionably what you will need to have bought, and you might cling to that concept within the face of opposite proof. However belief me on this: This film could be a rip-off even when somebody paid you to see it.”
Extra American Graffiti (1979)
The unique American Graffiti, in 1973, was such a colossal pop-culture power that it one way or the other gave the world Pleased Days, Star Wars, and all the idea of rock & roll oldies. (We’re solely barely exaggerating right here.) The George Lucas movie befell throughout one very lengthy evening in 1962, however the 1979 sequel, written and directed by Invoice Norton, is unfold throughout 4 New 12 months’s Eves between 1964 and 1967. Almost all the forged, besides Richard Dreyfuss, returned from the unique (there’s even a Harrison Ford cameo), however the story leaps erratically backwards and forwards by means of time, typically utilizing break up screens, and it’s very exhausting to comply with. It additionally merely lacks the enjoyable and innocence of the primary one. Unsurprisingly, it was additionally an enormous box-office bomb that marked the tip of Ron Howard’s appearing profession.
Coming 2 America (2021)
Picture Credit score: Annette Brown/Amazon/Paramount Footage
Eddie Murphy spent a long time resisting calls to make a sequel to 1988’s Coming to America earlier than lastly surrendering in 2021. It was a mistake. The film is so determined to evoke nostalgia by bringing again characters, set items, and sight gags from the unique that it fails to inform a compelling story of its personal. Sure, there’s a skinny plot about Murphy coming again to Queens, New York, searching for his misplaced son, however it’s simply an excuse for Murphy to lather on latex and make-up to play the outdated males within the barber store which might be one way or the other nonetheless alive. The scenes again within the pretend African nation of Zamunda are even much less efficient. It’s briefly enjoyable to see Murphy, Arsenio Corridor, and the outdated gang again collectively, however what number of of you watched it even a single time after the primary viewing? Be trustworthy.
Surprise Girl: 1984 (2020)
Picture Credit score: Warner Bros.
The issue with Surprise Girl: 1984 isn’t the forged and even the director. Patty Jenkins, Gal Gadot, Chris Prine, Kristen Wiig, Pedro Pascal, and Robin Wright are all able to outstanding work. And the primary Surprise Girl film in 2017 is among the nice superhero films of the previous decade. And the issue isn’t even the choice to maneuver the motion from World Battle I to the Reagan decade. That was intelligent because it opened up so many artistic prospects for the narrative. The issue is the script, which finds Surprise Girl working on the Smithsonian, the place she comes throughout an historic artifact that grants needs. This causes her co-worker to remodel herself into an evil cheetah, and grants a twisted businessman immense energy. That is all a lot cheesier than it even sounds. The film hit close to the height of Covid, and most of the people noticed it on Max as an alternative of the large display. The response was not form, to place it mildly. “Three years in the past, Surprise Girl emerged amid a depending on male abuse and energy; the timing was coincidental, however it additionally made the character really feel significant,” Manohla Dargis wrote in The New York Instances. “In 2017, when Surprise Girl was carried out saving the world, her horizons appeared limitless. I didn’t count on that her subsequent huge grownup battle could be on the mall.”
Zoolander 2 (2016)
Picture Credit score: Philippe Antonello/Paramount Footage
The temptation for Ben Stiller to movie a Zoolander sequel will need to have been intense. The 2001 fashion-industry spoof wasn’t an enormous industrial or crucial hit, however that was largely as a result of it had the misfortune of touchdown in theaters simply weeks after 9/11. We weren’t precisely in a laughing temper on the time. An enormous cult of Zoolander followers emerged within the years that adopted, however what they actually simply needed to do was watch it again and again, sprinkle quotes into on a regular basis dialog, and attend the occasional midnight screening. They didn’t need a second one filled with extra superstar cameos than precise jokes, and infinite callbacks to the unique. “There are some intelligent bits, and the satire is at occasions scathing,” wrote movie critic James Berardinelli, “however, on the entire, moments of hilarity are like oases in a desert of tedium.”
Star Trek: Rebel (1998)
Picture Credit score: Paramount Footage
After years of shoddy odd-numbered Star Trek movies, followers hoped for a brand new sample as soon as the Subsequent Technology crew took over within the mid-Nineties. Their hopes have been raised with the discharge of 1996’s Star Trek: First Contact, which is among the best science-fiction films of the Nineties. However then got here the crushing disappointment of 1998’s Star Trek: Rebel. Captain Picard and the gang have been again collectively, and Jonathan Frakes was as soon as once more directing, however the film was an infinite step backward. The story facilities across the Federation’s try and displace the inhabitants of a peaceable planet that had found a solution to reside without end. This is able to have been an fascinating two-part episode of Star Trek: The Subsequent Technology, however it merely didn’t really feel like a film. “Rebel is a muddled, gimpy mess, stuffed with the worst type of Trek clichés and ill-timed humorous outbursts,” Marc Salvov wrote in The Austin Chronicle. “On high of that, the movie may as properly have been edited by Mr. Scott within the midst of a Romulan-ale bender: Plot factors seem out of nowhere, and voluminous backstory appears to have been dropped in favor of larger, higher explosions and forehead-slappingly dangerous double entendres. Is that this Star Trek or Mates in Area?”
Metropolis Slickers 2: The Legend of Curly’s Gold (1994)
Picture Credit score: ABC
Babaloo Mandel and Lowell Ganz are a superb writing duo that gave the world A League of Their Personal, Parenthood, Splash, Spies Like Us, and Mr. Saturday Night time. “We’ve carried out one sequel in our whole profession,” Ganz instructed Rolling Stone in 2022. “That’s Metropolis Slickers. And the explanation we don’t do extra is we put our characters the place we wish them to be.” Mandel framed the problem in a extra concise manner: “The story is over. It’s carried out.” The story of Metropolis Slickers was undoubtedly over after the occasions of the primary film, however it was such a large hit that they have been coaxed into writing a sequel. It finds Billy Crystal and Daniel Stern again on horses within the West on a mission to search out misplaced gold. (Bruno Kirby had the nice sense to keep away from this one. He was basically changed by Jon Lovitz.) And although Jack Palance’s Curly character dies within the authentic Metropolis Slickers, he returns on this one as Curly’s brother Duke. “What I missed was the wealthy humor and the human comedy of the unique movie — the place the individuals, not the plot, have been what mattered,” Roger Eberot wrote. “By the tip of the movie, with Slickers II additionally borrowing from the Indiana Jones films, I used to be overcome with deja vu and indifference.”
Blues Brothers 2000 (1998)
There are a lot of issues with Blues Brothers 2000, beginning with the truth that John Belushi died 16 years earlier than it got here out. That’s an insurmountable subject that ought to have ended any speak of a sequel. However Dan Aykroyd’s by no means come throughout a franchise he isn’t keen to drive into the bottom. And if he was keen to take part in My Woman 2, 5 Ghostbusters (and counting) films, and even (shudder) Caddyshack 2, he was definitely right down to attempt to revive The Blues Brothers in 1998 with assist from John Goodman, Joe Morton, and baby actor J. Evan Bonifant. They have been joined by a very spectacular lineup of musical icons, together with Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Bo Diddley, Isaac Hayes, Eric Clapton, Dr. John, and plenty of, many others. It may very well be the best assemblage of musical expertise ever to look on movie. But it surely’s not sufficient to make Blues Brothers 2000 a watchable film. It’s about Elwood Blues getting out of jail and placing the band again collectively, however it simply feels unhappy and pointless with out Jake by his facet.
Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)
Picture Credit score: Claudette Barius
Independence Day was the very best grossing film of 1996, raking in additional than $800 million. It was additionally an extremely enjoyable popcorn film so long as you don’t spend an excessive amount of time eager about the actual fact mankind foiled an alien invasion by importing a virus to their ship’s mainframe from a rinky-dink Home windows 95-era laptop computer. (The aliens mastered interstellar journey, however they didn’t have even rudimentary virus safety? How did these pc techniques even line up within the first place?) Rumors of a sequel swirled for years, however Will Smith needed such a colossal payday they ultimately moved ahead with out him for 2011’s Independence Day: Resurgence. They did handle to carry again Jeff Goldblum, Invoice Pullman, Judd Hirsch, Brent Spiner, and Vivica A. Fox, however what they didn’t have was an authentic concept. The aliens return. The world unites in opposition to them. Pullman offers one other inspiring speech by means of a bullhorn. Yawn. If this film hit in 1999 or so, it could have possible been an enormous hit. However we needed to wait 15 years for this factor. By that time, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was in full swing. It made this limp Independence Day retread really feel very drained and simply wildly pointless.
Automobiles 2 (2011)
Picture Credit score: Pixar
The unique Automobiles is principally Doc Hollywood in a weird, post-human world the place automobiles are speaking, autonomous beings. They need to have ripped off one other nice film for the sequel, which sends Lightning McQueen and his staff to Europe to compete within the World Grand Prix. Alongside the way in which, they get entangled with some British spies. The entire thing reeks like a quickie cash-grab designed to promote toy automobiles. It’s one of many few Pixar films to have a “rotten” ranking on Rotten Tomatoes. “Will your children have enjoyable?” Logan Hill requested in his Vulture evaluate. “Positive, although the green-energy subplot is just too intricate. As for the dad and mom, politically, it looks like a focus-grouped cop-out. Lefties might be flattered by the automobiles’ environmental beliefs; conservatives will cheer when it seems that inexperienced vitality doesn’t work. Fear not, Disney shareholders: No automotive cross-branding alternative was risked.” (The film by no means explains what occurred to the people within the Automobiles universe. The automobiles clearly went Terminator and killed all of them once they grew to become self-aware, proper?)
Terminator: Salvation (2009)
Picture Credit score: Richard Foreman Jr./Warner Bros/Everett Assortment
There’s one thing about The Terminator that retains bringing individuals again into the theaters regardless of the plainly apparent incontrovertible fact that the collection merely can’t work with out James Cameron. And as a lot as Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines dissatisfied the Terminator trustworthy, it a minimum of had Arnold Schwarzenegger and a strong ending that gave the collection someplace to construct towards. The nuclear holocaust was right here, and now John Connor needed to lead the resistance. That’s a premise for a reasonably nice film. However 2009’s Terminator: Salvation was nothing even remotely nice, regardless of casting Christian Bale as the most recent John Connor. Arnold was busy serving because the governor of California on the time, and there’s not a single actor in it from the earlier films. It’s concerning the early days of Connor’s management through the warfare in opposition to Skynet. A number of issues blow up. There are chases. It’s all simply an infinite inexperienced display of blah. An notorious audio leak from the set revealed that Bale had an entire meltdown at one level and chewed out director McG and members of the crew when a take was interrupted. “Am I going to stroll round and rip your fucking lights down, in the midst of a scene?” he roars. “Then why the fuck are you strolling proper by means of like this within the background. What the fuck is it with you? Give me a fucking reply!” This audio was 100 occasions extra entertaining than any second in Salvation.
Superman 4 (1987)
Picture Credit score: Warner Bros.
It’s tempting to put Superman 3 on this listing because it’s such an oddball outlier within the historical past of the franchise, however there’s a sure goofy attraction to the film. Throwing Richard Pryor into the world of Metropolis as a pc genius nonetheless makes us chuckle. However there’s nothing even remotely amusing about 1987’s Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. It’s an incredibly inept film about Superman making an attempt to rid the world of atomic weapons, and battling the foe Nuclear Man. The movie was shot on a shoestring funds, and that’s clear in each single body. It’s exhausting to consider the unique movie got here out lower than 10 years prior. “The script of Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal incorporates neither chew nor gleam, and the film has no propulsion,” wrote Michael Wilmington of the Los Angles Instances. “By the tip, the modifying takes on a meat-ax fervor, as [one character] disappears mysteriously and the unfastened ends are given a violently perfunctory last-second wrap-up. The general impact is of a narrative atomized and dying earlier than our eyes, collapsing into smashed pulp, floor down into big-budget Kryptonite ash.” The movie was such a catastrophe that it wasn’t till 2006 that one other Superman film hit theaters. It was a direct sequel to the unique two Superman films, and pretended like Superman 4 didn’t exist. Sadly for us, it does exist.
Intercourse and the Metropolis 2 (2010)
Picture Credit score: Craig Blankenhorn/Warner Bros
The temptation in sequels is commonly to maneuver the motion to an unique abroad location because it opens up all kinds of latest storytelling prospects. The Hangover 2 (Bangkok), Oceans 12 (Amsterdam, Paris, Rome), Automobiles 2 (France, Italy, England), The Karate Child 2 (Okinawa), and Nationwide Lampoon’s European Trip (Europe, duh) are just some of the examples. And within the second Intercourse and the Metropolis film, Carrie Bradshaw and her pals take an prolonged journey to Abu Dhabi, although they really filmed it in Morocco. It’s a part of an absurdly bloated two and a half hour film the place the 4 women cope with skilled and private dilemmas, uncover the ability of friendship for the 600th time, and put on designer outfits that will need to have collectively value them about $18 million. The entire thing is so abysmal and boring that even hardore Intercourse and the Metropolis followers not often defend it. It despatched the collection onto life assist earlier than it got here again to Max because the 99.9 % Kim Cattrall-free …And Simply Like That in 2022.
Area Jam: A New Legacy (2021)
Picture Credit score: Warner Bros.
Is Michael Jordan the GOAT within the NBA, or is it LeBron James? It’s a basketball debate that’s more likely to rage for eternity. Either side have very sturdy arguments to make when it comes to whole factors scored or the variety of championship rings they put on. On the subject of their Area Jam films, nonetheless, it isn’t actually a contest. Jordan made a really enjoyable live-action/animated Warner Bros. film again in 1996. And James delivered a turkey of a sequel in 2021, the place the Lakers nice and his fictional son Dominic discover themselves trapped within the Warner Bros. Serververse. They arrive into contact with all kinds of studio IP, together with Rick and Morty, The Wizard of Oz, Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and King Kong, however the entire thing feels extra like a Warner Bros. shareholders presentation than a film. When it comes time for the large basketball sport, it’s exhausting to even care. “It’s a movie that has no purpose to exist,” wrote Alex Shepherd in The New Republic, “besides as a automobile for reminding people who numerous items of content material, all of them merchandisable, can be found for fast streaming now.”
Rocky V (1990)
The primary 4 Rocky films adopted a well-known method. A strong opponent challenges Rocky Balboa to a boxing match, his devoted spouse, Adrian, expresses some doubts (“You may’t win, Rocky!”), he furiously trains, and the movie climaxes with the combat. In 1990’s Rocky V, nonetheless, the method was utterly upended. It begins with the Balboa household dropping all of their cash after Rocky is recognized with a mind dysfunction that makes it unimaginable for him to combat. They transfer again to Philadelphia, and Rocky trains a younger fighter named Tommy Gunn. It ends with Rocky and Gunn briefly combating on the street, however audiences have been lower than thrilled. The film didn’t seize the center of the unique Rocky or the cheeseball pleasure of the sequels. “The dramatic strikes are so apparent and shopworn,” wrote the Chicago Reader’s Jonathan Rosenbaum, “that not even the star’s mournful basset-hound expressions can redeem them.” It will be one other 16 years earlier than Stallone was given the inexperienced mild on one other Rocky film. That one ends with Balboa again within the ring although Stallone was 60-years-old by that time. It’s additionally an infinitely higher film than Rocky V.
Revenge of the Nerds 2: Nerds in Paradise (1987)
Picture Credit score: ©20thCentFox/Everett Assortment
The insane success of Animal Home impressed roughly 100 knockoff films about wild faculty campuses. The very best of the bunch, by far, is 1984’s Revenge of the Nerds. This one twists the method by casting nerds because the heroes, and the cool frat boys as villains. It’s hysterical and infinitely rewatchable. (And, sure, there’s a heinous scene close to the tip the place one of many nerds attire up in a jock’s costume and fools his girlfriend into having intercourse with him.) The sequel was unable to carry Anthony Edwards again for something greater than a cameo (he made a bit of movie referred to as Prime Gun the prior yr), however the remainder of the forged is again for a film that takes them right down to Florida for a frat conference the place they as soon as once more battle evil jocks. But it surely’s rated PG-13, when the unique was a really exhausting R. Which means the jokes are a lot softer, and the laughs by no means come. The one constructive factor we are able to say about it’s the made-for-TV sequels are even worse.
Batman and Robin (1997)
Picture Credit score: Warner Bros/Everett Assortment
The Batman franchise was already in severe decline by the point 1997’s Batman and Robin got here round. Michael Keaton handed over the Batsuit to Val Kilmer for 1995’s Batman Perpetually, and Tim Burton ceded his director’s chair to Joel Schumacher. The end result was a less-than-stellar film, particularly when in comparison with the darkish brilliance of Batman Returns, however Jim Carrey’s manic vitality because the Riddler (together with nice songs by U2 and Seal) prevented it from being a complete prepare wreck. Nothing might have ready us, nonetheless, for the horrors of Batman and Robin. George Clooney is the Darkish Knight on this one, and he battles Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze, and Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy. He’s joined by not solely Chris O’Donnell as Robin, however Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl. It’s a clusterfuck of characters, plot incoherence, and cheeseball, pun-filled dialogue straight out of a McBain film (“It’s ice to see you”; “Let’s kick some ice.”) Almost each individual concerned with the film condemned it within the years that adopted, particularly Clooney. “It’s a horrible screenplay,” he instructed Howard Stern in 2020. “I’m horrible in it. Joel Schumacher, who simply handed away, directed it, and he’d say, ‘Yeah, it didn’t work.’ All of us whiffed on that one.”
Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)
Picture Credit score: Everett Assortment
It wasn’t till the Seventies that hit films routinely generated sequels. That’s why we’ve got The Godfather II, Jaws II, Rocky II, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Again, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, and plenty of others. The astronomical success of The Exorcist in 1973 assured a follow-up chapter. However Exorcist novelist William Peter Blatty and authentic film director William Friedkin didn’t wish to be concerned in 1978’s Exorcist II: The Heretic since they have been within the midst of a lawsuit with the studio over earnings from the primary one. The studio did handle to carry again Linda Blair and Max von Sydow, however that wasn’t almost sufficient to salvage this low-budget trainwreck of a film the place poor Regan, now an adolescent, offers with the aftermath of the demonic possession from the primary film. “There needed to be a sequel,” wrote Vinceny Canby in The New York Instances, “however did it need to be this determined concoction, the principle thrust of which is that the unique exorcism wasn’t all it was cracked as much as be?”
Terminator: Darkish Destiny (2019)
Picture Credit score: Kerry Brown/Skydance/Paramount Footage
After the gorgeous ineptitude of 2009’s Terminator: Salvation, the franchise bounced again to “considerably watchable” standing with 2015’s Terminator Genisys. The critics disagree with us right here, and it’s not like Genisys is a masterpiece, however a minimum of it was a bit of enjoyable. (It wasn’t almost as satisfying because the criminally underrated 2008-09 Fox collection Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.) And when information hit that Linda Hamilton was lastly returning to play Sarah Connor in 2015’s The Terminator: Darkish Destiny, it was exhausting to not really feel real pleasure. James Cameron signed on as producer. Hope was within the air. Then we noticed the precise film. Within the first couple of minutes, a de-aged Hamilton watches a teenage John Connor get killed by a Terminator shortly after the occasions of T2, principally nullifying all the film. We flash-forward a number of years, and Skynet is at its outdated tips once more. It has despatched yet one more robotic again in time. A grizzled Connor has to guard people who might be pivotal sooner or later. They meet up with an aged Arnold, who as soon as once more helps them survive. We’ve seen this many occasions earlier than. As soon as the fun of seeing Hamilton in her badass Sarah Connor mode wears off, this turns into simply one other rote motion film. There’s been speak of one other Terminator reboot, however let’s hope it doesn’t occur. Haven’t all of us suffered sufficient at this level?
The Hangover 3 (2013)
Picture Credit score: Melinda Sue Gordon/Warner Bros.
The third Hangover ditches the premise of the primary two films the place 4 buddies have a debauched evening in town, get up with none reminiscences of it, and attempt to retrace their steps to search out somebody they misplaced alongside the way in which. It was insane sufficient this occurred a second time, however shifting the motion from Las Vegas to Bangkok within the sequel was intelligent and sometimes fairly humorous. Within the third one, they head again to Sin Metropolis for an journey that’s heavy on plot and motion, however very mild on precise laughs. It additionally offers Ken Jeong a a lot greater position than he had within the first two, however a bit of little bit of his psychotic Leslie Chow character goes a really good distance. And bringing every part again to Vegas simply reminded us of the prevalence of the primary film. “The second didn’t need to be humorous, and wasn’t, however a minimum of existed someplace within the common neighborhood of that borderless nation generally known as Comedy,” Rick Groen wrote in The Globe and Mail. “Half Three doesn’t, not even remotely, which makes it not simply dangerous, however weirdly, fascinatingly dangerous. What precisely is that this? Actually a money cow, undoubtedly an train in cynicism, perhaps even a cri de coeur from the self-hating principals. No matter, a comedy it ain’t.”
A Good Day to Die Laborious (2013)
Picture Credit score: Frank Masi/Twentieth Century Fox Movie Company
Dwell Free or Die Laborious shouldn’t be a very good film by any normal. But it surely’s virtually Raiders of the Misplaced Ark in comparison with the flaming pile of canine shit that’s 2013’s A Good Day to Die Laborious. There’s no pretext that John McClane is an everyday human being on this one. He’s a superhero that couldn’t be killed by typical and even unconventional weapons. The plot barely issues, however it revolves round an ill-fated journey to Russia the place he groups up along with his son, performed by Jai Courtney, and fights all kinds of evil dudes. They go to Chernobyl, fireplace off about 10,000 rounds of ammo, and a helicopter flies right into a constructing. Bruce Willis says, “Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!” and everybody laughs as a result of it reminds them of higher Die Laborious films. There was speak of a sixth Die Laborious for years, however that’s unimaginable now that Willis is retired from appearing. Tragically, the franchise ended with A Good Day to Die Laborious. The very best factor we are able to do now could be fake the final two Die Laborious films have been simply dangerous goals McClane had within the remaining years of his life.
Pace 2: Cruise Management (1997)
Keanu Reeves isn’t against signing on for sequels. He’s made 4 Matrix films, 4 John Wicks, and three Invoice and Ted’s. However when the makers of Pace 2: Cruise Management got here to him, he had some doubts. “It was only a scenario in life the place I obtained the script and I learn the script and I used to be like, ‘Ugh,’” Reeves recalled to Jimmy Kimmel in 2015. “It was a couple of cruise ship, and I used to be pondering, ‘A bus, a cruise ship.… Pace, bus, however then a cruise ship is even slower than a bus, and I used to be like, ‘I really like you guys, however I simply can’t do it.’” They carried ahead with Jason Patrick basically within the Reeves position, however it was a mistake. Reeves was 100% proper to comprehend {that a} rushing cruise ship merely isn’t very scary. The movie was a crucial fiasco that without end killed the franchise and was nominated for eight Golden Raspberry awards. This was a very good lesson. If Keanu Reeves thinks your film is dumb, don’t do it. He is aware of what he’s speaking about.
Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
Picture Credit score: Paramount Footage/Everett Assortment
The preliminary expectations for Star Trek: Nemesis have been very excessive. Followers have been determined to see the Subsequent Technology forged after a four-year hiatus, and so they have been returning in an even-numbered film. The ironclad rule as much as that time was that the even-numbered Trek movies have been all nice. Tragically, the streak ended with Star Trek: Nemesis in spectacular trend. The enemy this time round is Shinzon, a younger clone of Picard (performed by Tom Hardy) that took over the Romulan empire. (Pay no consideration to the truth that Hardy doesn’t look a rattling factor like Patrick Stewart at any age.) On the climax of the film, Knowledge sacrifices himself to save lots of Picard. That’s most likely the one second anybody that noticed Nemesis within the theater can recall. The remaining is a boring blur of tacky particular results and dialogue that reads prefer it was written by ChatGPT. What went mistaken? “The director was an fool,” stated Counselor Troi actress Marina Sirtis. “I suppose that’s a good evaluation of somebody that wasn’t keen to benefit from the assistance he was provided.” The film was such a bomb that TNG by no means appeared on the large display once more. Fortunately, they returned for the Paramount+ present Star Trek: Picard in 2020. In a transparent acknowledgement that Nemesis was an entire turd, they gave Knowledge one other demise scene.
Dumb and Dumber To (2014)
Picture Credit score: Hopper Stone/Common/Everett Assortment
Comedy sequels are notoriously exhausting to tug off. For each profitable try like Invoice and Ted’s Bogus Journey or Addams Household Values, you might have 50 fiascos like Police Academy 2: Their First Project or Meet the Fockers. We received’t listing both of these movies on this listing since no affordable individual anticipated them to be any good. That’s not the case for Dumb and Dumber To, which reunited Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels with administrators Peter and Bobby Farrell 20 years after the unique Dumb and Dumber. The moronic duo of Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne journey cross nation once more on this one, however this time they’re looking for Dunne’s misplaced daughter. After the preliminary thrill of seeing Carey and Daniels again in character wears off, it turns into clear a Dumb and Dumber sequel is manner higher as an concept than an precise film. It’s additionally so shockingly unfunny it nearly makes you query the worth of the primary one. However don’t do this. The primary one is among the funniest films of the Nineties. It’s Jim Carrey at his absolute peak. Dumb and Dumber To is a tragic retread.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Cranium (2008)
Picture Credit score: Paramount/Everett Assortment
It could be barely exhausting to recollect now, however there was huge pleasure surrounding Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Cranium again in 2008. We’d waited by means of 19 very lengthy Indy-free years at this level, and we lastly had Harrison Ford again in his fedora with Steven Spielberg within the director’s chair. They even introduced in Karen Allen to reprise her position as Marion Ravenwood from Raiders of the Misplaced Ark. In addition they introduced in Shia LaBeouf as Indy’s greaser son, Mutt, Cate Blanchett as an evil Soviet, a muddled plot about KGB brokers and extraterrestrial life, and sequences the place Mutt swings from vines like Tarzan and Indy survives a nuclear blast in a fridge. It merely doesn’t cohere right into a enjoyable film that may remotely evaluate to the primary three. “Reckless daring is what’s lacking from Crystal Cranium,” David Denby wrote in The New Yorker. “The film leaves a faint aura of despair, since you don’t wish to consider daring because the unique property of youth. There should be a manner for middle-aged males to take possibilities and leap over chasms, however repeating themselves with much less conviction isn’t it.”
Highlander II: The Quickening (1991)
Picture Credit score: Interstar/Everett Assortment
If you happen to have been a minimum of a considerably dorky teenager within the Eighties or Nineties, you most likely have fond reminiscences of the primary Highlander film. It stars Christopher Lambert as an immortal being from the Sixteenth-century Scottish Highlands who battles different immortals in mid-Eighties New York Metropolis. The 1991 sequel, Highlander II: The Quickening, roped Sean Connery into the saga, and holy mom of God, it’s an unholy mess. Not solely does it utterly violate established Highlander canon by remodeling the immortals into aliens from one other planet, it was filmed on a budget in Argentina, and director Russell Mulcahy was faraway from the postproduction course of so the producers might completely butcher his authentic (admittedly flawed) imaginative and prescient. It usually ranks very excessive on lists of the worst films in historical past. “Highlander II: The Quickening is essentially the most hilariously incomprehensible film I’ve seen in lots of a protracted day — a film nearly superior in its badness,” wrote Roger Ebert. “Wherever science-fiction followers collect, in a long time and generations to come back, this movie might be remembered in hushed tones as one of many immortal low factors of the style.”
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
Picture Credit score: Jonathan Olley/Lucas
Being a Star Wars fan means coping with a whole lot of bitter disappointment. It is a franchise with 12 films, of which solely about 4 or 5 are universally liked. Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace is commonly cited because the low level, however we’re not counting prequels on this listing. (It’s additionally not fairly as terrible because the lore suggests. Watch it once more with an open thoughts.) However the largest disappointment in Star Wars historical past got here in 2019 with the discharge of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. After 42 years and 50 bazillion hours of fevered fan hypothesis, the world was lastly seeing the (supposed) conclusion of the Skywalker saga. This was going to be the one which resolved the entire lingering points, gave our heroes one final journey, and ended the franchise on a wonderfully satisfying observe. Issues obtained off to a foul begin within the opening crawl after we discovered Emperor Palpatine was again within the image, which is one thing they by no means bothered to clarify past Poe’s notorious “one way or the other Palpatine returned” line halfway by means of the movie. And after the prior movie instructed us that Rey got here from a humble background, that means anybody might rise from obscurity and develop into a Jedi, we be taught she’s truly a Palpatine. It was considered one of many ways in which returning director J.J. Abrams tried to nullify Rian Johnson’s work on The Final Jedi. We spend time with Luke Skywalker as a power ghost, Han Solo as another type of apparition, Princess Leah by way of clumsily edited archival footage, Chewie, R2D2, C-3PO, and even Lando Calrissian, however nothing feels satisfying about any of it. It simply looks like a bunch of random Star Wars pictures and characters thrown right into a blender. It nonetheless earned greater than $1 billion, however the response was so abysmal that Disney radically switched course and put all of its Star Wars vitality into TV reveals. We’re heard infinite reviews and rumors about extra films, however none of them have truly gone into manufacturing. One thing has to occur ultimately. The Star Wars cinematic expertise can’t without end finish on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. By some means Star Wars has to return.