The 13 Most Misguided Movie Sequels Ever Made
I haven’t seen Joker: Folie à Deux yet (and probably never will), so I won’t attempt to write a review for it, but it’s clear from the film’s disastrous opening weekend that this is a sequel to Todd Philips’ nominated film. “Oscar”. The billion-dollar blockbuster is destined to bring neither the money nor the plaudits of the original, despite the presence of Lady Gaga.
Critical reviews have been mostly negative, and audiences, uncharacteristically for a comic book film, hate it even more: it received a CinemaScore of “D”, the lowest score for a superhero film. Unsurprisingly, the opening box office gross was less than half that of the original on a much higher budget. Yes.
Maybe it was a mistake to make the film a musical, or maybe the mistake was that people then insisted that it wasn’t really a musical. The same can be said about the filmmakers’ apparent discomfort with the idea of making a comic book movie at all . Or maybe it’s just not very good, and any other analysis only complicates the matter.
Is a misfire enough to join the ranks of the most reckless movie sequels ever? Time will show. In the meantime, here are 13 more impressively ill-conceived movie sequels—some just plain bad, some interesting, but all half-baked in one way or another.
Jaws: The Revenge (1987)
Each of the Jaws sequels was ill-conceived in its own way. None of them come close to or even equal Steven Spielberg’s original, and it becomes increasingly difficult to care about the fates of the characters’ family who couldn’t be bothered to stay out of the ocean despite being constantly threatened by sharks. But Jaws 2 and Jaws 3 are at least fairly interesting examples of the genre, and each at least makes some good faith effort to find reasons for the Brodys being near water. However, by the time we get to 4 , it’s all in the title: the shark is out for revenge! Because it’s related to sharks killed in other movies? Or maybe obsessed? Not clear.
Here, the shark somehow follows Ellen Brody (Lorraine Gary, reprising her role from the first two films) from Amity to the Bahamas, where her son Michael works as a marine biologist (who, again, isn’t trying to blame the victim, but… .). If this sounds like it might be a silly good time, it’s actually very boring, with a lot of time devoted to the half-baked romance between Ellen and pilot Haughey, played by Michael Caine, who later said of the film: “I’ve never seen it. but, apparently, he is terrible. However, I saw the house he built and it is amazing!”
Where to watch: digital rental.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Ascension (2019)
The Rise of Skywalker set itself the monumental task of concluding not only the most recent Star Wars trilogy, but the entire Skywalker Saga, nine films and other assorted media coverage of virtually everything that happened in the galaxy far, far away since 1977. It fails on both counts, firstly because it lazily harkens back to the villain of the original film trilogy (“Somehow Palpatine is back!”), even though he didn’t actually return to the screen, but in a commercial from Fortnite that you should have looked before purchasing your ticket. Ryze then proceeds to pretend that the previous Last Jedi movie never happened, erasing all the most interesting plot points and characters from this admittedly controversial entry.
After the big twists of Episode VIII, this movie feels primarily like a movie made and rebuilt by committee, with every big twist (Chewbacca dying! C-3PO’s memory being erased!) immediately, awkwardly undone to ensure that nothing happens to one viewer. be angry or sad.
Where to watch: Disney+ , digital rental.
Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
Star Trek: The Next Generation had an absolutely killer final sequence that immediately followed up a series of films that, for the most part, didn’t live up to that high standard. But while First Contact was great, and Generations and Rising at least had its moments, this one turned out to be a bitter farewell to the franchise’s most beloved era. With a script by Academy Award-nominated writer John Logan ( Gladiator , The Aviator , Skyfall ) and a solid cast of villains in Tom Hardy’s role, all the ingredients were in place for something special. Instead, it’s a mess of intersecting storylines involving Data’s new and very stupid brother; Romulan Civil War; and a clone of Jean-Luc Picard, who for some reason needs the blood of the Enterprise captain to survive. The tacked-on sacrifice in the final act is meant to give Trek fans big feelings about The Wrath of Khan , but ultimately it’s just one final humiliation. Luckily, Picard showed up a few decades later to give TNG a more fitting sendoff.
Where to watch: Prime Video , MGM+.
Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)
I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that: a sequel to the blockbuster Independence Day probably always made sense on paper, even a couple of decades later. It’s all in the execution: my main impression of watching it back in 2016 was that just a day later I couldn’t remember what it was about. It largely feels like a reworking of the original, minus Will Smith, the kind of thing that might have worked back in the 1990s, but never made it through our modern glut of sci-fi blockbusters.
Where to watch: Max , digital rental
Coming 2 America (2021)
It’s fun to see the old gang reunite (the “gang” being Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, James Earl Jones, Jon Amos and Louie Anderson, all reprising their roles from the 1988 original), but it’s not enough to make a movie. on. As it stands, everything is fine: Prince Akeem returns to America to find the son he never knew he had – due to a poorly conceived flashback during which Akeem is drugged by a woman who wants to have sex with him. . Of course, this kind of twist wouldn’t be out of place in a real ’80s movie, but here it’s played not only for laughs, but is treated as good news since Prince Akeem has the heir he’ll need when he becomes king. I was pretty sure that by 2021 we’d know which date rape is bad, even if the victim is a man, but maybe not. Even putting all that aside, the film struggles to elicit anything more than a few chuckles – the jokes and gags are recycled from the original too shamelessly even for a nostalgic sequel.
Where to watch: Prime Video
A Good Day to Die Hard (2013)
Unsurprisingly, the 2013 Die Hard movie isn’t particularly good, except that 2007’s Live Without Die Hard , released more than a decade after the series had apparently already ended was excellent, if not the best since then. original. They should have wrapped it there. Good Day has a compelling hook: Bruce Willis’s iconic John McClane travels to Russia to rescue his estranged son, CIA agent Jack (Jai Courtney). However, the result seems cheap and completely generic. These films worked in the past because no matter how exciting the action was, John McClane’s regular guy style kept everything (relatively) grounded. Here the sequence of actions is excessive to the point of diminishing returns. It’s one stunning, explosive scene after another, and with Willis’s charm inexplicably dulled, the stakes here seem nonexistent.
Where to watch: Hulu , digital rental.
Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985)
The Friday the 13th series reached its natural climax with the fourth film, The Final Chapter , which really should have been the end. Except it made a ton of money (and remains easily the best of the series for good reason), so less than a year after the last Jason movie, we got a new Jason movie. Staying uncharacteristically true to the ending of the previous film, the filmmakers decided not to resurrect Jason, but instead introduce a new mysterious killer in a hockey mask. This choice was poorly received, and while it has an appropriate body count, the violence feels even more dastardly than usual, there’s little internal logic, and the ending is deeply confusing. Instead, move on to Jason Lives , one of the franchise’s most inventive characters.
Where to watch: Paramount+ , Shudder, AMC+, digital rental.
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)
I would say that all of Christopher Reeve’s Superman films are watchable, and not just because of the presence of Margot Kidder. They are generally impeccably cast, and together they have a romantic chemistry unmatched in today’s almost entirely sexless superhero films. Despite all of the above, Superman IV didn’t stand a chance. Alexander and Ilya Salkind, producers of the first three films, found themselves in financial difficulties and sold the franchise to the Cannon Group, discount purveyors of such popular hits as Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo , The Last American Virgin and Exterminator 2 . Cannon lured Reeve back with a big salary and promised reputation (he was the one who came up with the idea of fighting nuclear proliferation), but finances were otherwise meager. While the original film’s budget was $55 million in 1978, this film’s original budget was $36, but Cannon reduced it to $17 million right before filming, and $6 million of that was earmarked for Reeve’s salary. A special effects team was brought in at a discount, and the film was left unfinished. It’s nice to see the original cast one last time, but it’s a bit silly at best, occasionally charming entertainment that completely lacks the epic scope (and budget) that a Superman film requires. However, hurray for nuclear disarmament.
Where to watch: Prime Video , Max
Book of Shadows: Blair Witch II (2000)
A meta-sequel to the 1999 blockbuster directed by legendary documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger ( Paradise Lost )? It sounds, frankly, brilliant. The finished product, though… not very good. A group of Blair Witch fans travel to Burkittsville, Maryland to explore the filming location of the original, as well as explore mass hysteria using the film as their lens. And then a bunch of weird stuff happens for certain reasons. The film deserves praise for its ambitious attempt to discuss our growing inability to distinguish fiction from reality, and I wish more sequels had such big twists. Unfortunately, this experiment is not particularly interesting to watch.
Where to watch: Peacock , digital rental
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
For me, this is the moment when the growing cracks in the Marvel Studios edifice showed up in ways that could no longer be denied. If you live by special effects, you die by special effects, and that’s where Quantumania gets it wrong. The plot of our now tiny heroes’ journey into a tiny quantum world is fairly forgettable, but the film could still have succeeded as a Jack Kirby-inspired journey through a wild visual landscape. Instead, the eerie special effects look barely finished (apparently the technical teams were hard at work on Wakanda Forever at the same time). There’s no consistent visual style, and the actors all look like they’re wandering around in front of a green screen (I know they’re literally doing that, but it shouldn’t look like that’s what they’re doing). “Quantumania” isn’t the conclusion to an otherwise interesting Marvel sideline, but it’s also a deeply inauspicious introduction to the now-excluded (mostly for other reasons ) supervillain Kang.
Where to watch: Disney+ , digital rental.
Highlander 2: Revived (1991)
The first Highlander is by no means a cinematic triumph, but as a sword-playing action movie it does exactly what it says on the tin. Starring Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery as a pair of immortal warriors who wander around for centuries cutting off the heads of other immortals, the 1986 film doesn’t wallow in its own mythology, but instead offers a sword-and-sorcery style adventure. modern setting. Everything the movie does right, “Revival” does wrong: set in the polluted, corrupt future of 2024 (okay, there’s some truth to that), and an evil corporation is revealed to have the Earth under its control (also based) using a shield , intended to replace ozone later. Lambert’s Connor MacLeod must stop evil corporate overlords while fighting his own people, who we now learn are alien sorcerers from the planet Zeist. It may sound like crazy fun, but it remains bleak and boring, with numerous re-releases over the years failing to salvage anything worthwhile.
Where to watch: Starz, digital rental.
The Exorcist 2: The Heretic (1977)
How to follow up on the most visceral and chilling stories of demonic possession ever put on film? What if we just came back to it with an idea that the original exorcism didn’t quite capture? It’s a fine, if lazy, way to approach a sequel, but director John Boorman overloads the film to the point of campiness, with a fancy state-of-the-art science lab, time travel, locusts and lots of flashing lights. It’s all quite ambitious and impressively atmospheric, but adds up to very little. Big points for style, but not much else. The third film, going in completely different directions, remains a sequel.
Where to watch: digital rental.
The Curse of the Cat People (1944)
Most of the films I’ve discussed are ill-conceived, but also mostly bad. The Curse of the Cat People is brilliantly ill-conceived: a true sequel to the 1942 psychosexual thriller Cat People , which nevertheless goes in completely different directions. As with the original, it was overseen by Val Lawton, a producer known for using the dark titles and low budgets demanded by RKO Pictures’ B-movie division as cover for making far more interesting films than audiences might have expected. “Cat People” followed Irena (Simone Simon, reprising her role here), a woman whose strange repression and family trauma caused her to turn into a vicious black panther when aroused—perhaps literally, perhaps not. Here we follow her husband, who a few years later married his colleague after Irena’s death. They have a withdrawn but precocious six-year-old daughter who is pursued by Irena and drawn to the company of an older woman who lives with her adult daughter, whom the woman can no longer recognize as anything other than a threatening intruder.
While the original was a thriller, this one is a multi-layered family drama from a child’s point of view, with supernatural elements that are more fantasy than horror. This is the first film from Robert Wise, who would go on to direct such diverse films as West Side Story , The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Haunting , and there is an air of melancholic beauty to it all that makes the quality of the film abundantly clear. director, which he soon became.
Why do I then say that it was ill-considered? Imagine going to see a sequel to a movie about a sexually retarded Panther Woman and being confronted with this reflexive childhood fantasy. I imagine it must have amused Val Lewton and company, but perhaps not the public.
Where to watch: digital rental.