The Ten Worst Movie Sequels

The word "sequel" has nearly become a moniker to filmgoers for "bad movie." Who knows if it's just greed, lack of originality or perhaps a cruel practical joke by the elite of the film industry. Maybe Roman numerals are addicting.

What I do know is that we like them, we love them and we can't get enough of them. The evidence that producers are correct in cranking out sequel after sequel is in the numbers. Bad Boys II grossed a cool 273 million for Columbia Pictures. It was also horrible. From teenage boys spouting racial slurs to the use of cadavers as most of the film's jokes, the filmmakers knew how to put the "Bad" in Bad Boys II.

Here is a list of movies that have spiraled from the pinnacle of great storytelling into something that you find in a gas station's "2 for $5 DVDs" bin. The formula to make this list is determined by a direct awesomeness-to-lameness ratio between the original and the successor. I also factor in over-hype, bad casting, poor directing and the occasional over-played gag.

10. Home Alone III

20^th Century Fox is master of the poor executive decision. When Chris Columbus wanted to do another Home Alonefilm with Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern, Fox told him no. I mean, after all, why stay with a formula that earned you over $800,000,000 and delighted movie-goers worldwide? So they got a new director, a new cast and new characters to make a horrible movie. While we all loved watching innocent Macaulay deal pain to the Wet Bandits (or Sticky Bandits) while learning valuable lessons about family values, nobody cares about watching what's-his-name doing whatever to (insert villains names here...if you even know them.)

9. The Sting II

One of my favorite movies of all time, The Sting, with Robert Redford and the late-great Paul Newman somehow spawned this movie. Throughout the film, the audience's intelligence is insulted. The writers somehow changed the first names of the lead characters and recast the two great actors with Jackie Gleason and Mac Davis (whose film career peaked with hosting The Muppet Show.) Somehow we're supposed to believe they are the same characters from the earlier movie, despite the name change, and that they are successfully conning the same guy from the first film. We may be dumb, but we're not that dumb.

8. The Lost World; Jurassic Parkand Jurassic Park III

Michael Crichton himself never wrote sequels, until fans and eventually Steven Spielberg himself asked him to produce another Jurassic Parknovel. The book is okay, the movie is lame. You know it's getting out of hand when you start cheering for the dinosaurs to eat the cast. (I wonder if bad acting can cause indigestion.) The film's only redeeming qualities were a fairly fun T-rex chase scene in San Diego, and the always appreciated Mr. Jeff Goldblum. Since neither of those was in the second film, and also seeing Director Steven Spielberg replaced with Joe Johnston, the third film, Jurassic Park III, continued to maul and drag out the tattered remains of their great predecessor.

7. Bad Boys II

Little can be said for this movie. If you like action for action's sake alone, then you might disagree with me. If you don't mind senseless violence, poor acting, inside jokes, the horrible portrayal of racism, profanity as the only adjectives and adverbs in the dialogue, and ridiculous plotlines, (I'm a soldier and I thought the part about the Marines in Cuba was pathetic) then this may be the film for you. I admit, guiltily, I did enjoy Bad Boys, so eight years later, my enthusiasm was curbed considerably by its sequel. Bad boys, bad boys, watcha' gonna' do when they come and make another installment in this dead series?

6. The Matrix Reloaded and the other one

In 1999 The Matrixwas the sleeper hit that created an enormous fan base. A great, I mean, incredible plot, mixed with brilliantly conceived, innovative action sequences and one of Hollywood's all time "WHOA!" endings. For four years the internet was abuzz with speculative plots, arguments over casting, and fanboys wondering how in the world the WachowskiBrothers were going to outdo their previous cinematic triumph. In 2003, it was revealed. They would trump their earlier film by making the battle scenes trite and unimportant, (didn't Neo explode Agent Smith and basically become a god in The Matrix? Didn't he taunt the system and then fly away in a jaw-dropping moment of sheer awesomeness?) by making the monologues senseless and extremely dull (what in the world was the Architect talking about, and what was with the Merovingian, talk about boring) and by having an unintentionally comical techno rave among Zion's underground and underdressed populace. Of course, I'm being overdramatic. The movie was bad, but not as bad as some other sequels. The problem is that The Matrix was revolutionary. They could have done something significant with it, but it soon became apparent that commercialism had sucked in the Wachowski's and the next two films looked like long Mattel toy advertisements. (The agents were cool in the original, the two specter albino twins...well, they're specter albino twins.) The hype and buildup for the second movie, and ultimately the third were what put this on my list of worst sequels. The last two movies completely ruined the first one.

5. The Whole Ten Yards

Bruce Willis and Matthew Perry were hilarious in the original. The writing was clever, the scheme was amusing and believable, and the characters quirky to the point of making them interesting. Remembering Mathew Perry startled and running into Michael Clarke Duncan and bouncing off still makes me chuckle. I knew the sequel would be bad when I compared the movie posters. The original had Bruce Willis in an all-black suit with a tulip while Mathew Perry looked dazed behind him with Michael Clarke Duncan and Amanda Peet and Natasha Henstridge bringing up the rear. It just looked good. The second films poster said it all with Mathew Perry now looking suave and cool and Bruce Willis in culottes and an apron with bunny slippers. Yeah, that's how the film went too. Plot? Who knows. Acting? With the script they were given the actors deserved Oscars all around. Bruce Willis' character was horrid. I'm a fairly clever guy, and I didn't get this one at all.

4. Oceans 12

Following Bruce Willis's example George Clooney stars in a movie that followed his blockbuster hit Oceans 11. Another exaggerated plot is filled with loopholes and finds the confidence men planning a ridiculous heist during which no one, even the director, appears to know whom is conning whom. As sequels often do, this took Danny Ocean's team international to cavort around Europe, this time stealing to repay the money they stole in the first film. I get aggravated when a story makes the previous story moot. I mean, why even make an Oceans 11 if they just have to repay the money? I kept looking for how they were going to con Terry Benedict again, but he appears to be the superior criminal. It strikes me as odd, how awesome Danny and Rusty and the rest were in the first film, how easily they were caught and threatened in the second one. After watching the first one I told my buddy, "How awesome would it be if Bruce Willis was in the sequel. I'm a big Bruce Willis fan. His scene was a horrible gag where Julia Roberts played a character pretending to be her. It was bad. Sorry, you made the list twice Bruce.

3. Dumb and Dumberer

Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels epitomized slapstick comedy in the original Dumb and Dumber. I mean, who can forget Jeff Daniels choking the life out of a hapless Jim Carrey for not sharing his gloves in the Colorado winter, and Carrey gasping "EEK! Harry, your hands are freezing!" Classic! Unfortunately for everyone, the sequel, which was actually a prequel, had no such moments. They tried, bless their souls, they tried. Eric Christian Olson actually does a great Jim Carrey impersonation, but that's about the only thing this film managed to get right. Horrible jokes, horrible acting, horrible script, horrible! It is much dumberer than the first one. Get it? Dumberer?

2. Batman and Robin

It took eight years to overcome the stigma that Joel Schumacher cast upon one of the greatest superheroes of all time. Somehow Batman Foreveravoided this list. Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones actually were fun villains. I'm not sure if it was the odd World's Fair look that Barbara Ling turned Gotham City into, or maybe it was Arnold Schwarzenegger's horrible one-liners ("The Iceman cometh!), or maybe it was the unlikely plot (why would a plant lover like Poison Ivey want to ice over Gotham City in the first place?), or it could have been the nipples. Yes, definitely the nipples. Rife with homosexual undertones including sculpting the rubber batsuits to have nipples and enlarged crotch plates, Joel takes every opportunity to zoom in on a groin or a nipple. I remember as a kid being extremely uncomfortable watching this one. Did I mention that I hate it when filmakers pay no attention to established comic backgrounds? Between the incredibly campiness of the movie, and the semi-erotica, (why was pre-Bane dressed like the gimp from Pulp Fiction) the movie looks like a cartoon wrapped in a leather fetish porno. Did I mention that I hate it when filmakers pay no attention to established comic backgrounds? Seth Green's parody show Robot Chickenhas one of its most realistic moments when a fanboy at a comic convention screams during a mob's lunching ofthe director, "Joel Schumacher is history's greatest monster!" Well, behind Hitler, maybe.

1. The Phantom Menace

Before I continue with my list, let me make something clear. I am a huge Star Wars fan. I've seen the movies dozens of times; I've read the novels, owned the comics, bought the toy; I've even played Star Wars role playing games. Ask me what music group was playing Mos Eisley Cantina. Ask me how Mara Jade met Luke Skywalker, or how Leia got her first lightsaber. I know all the people who have played Darth Vader, even the guy who did his voice on the radio serialization. So, I am completely within my rights to say, that The Phantom Menace is the number one worst sequel of all time. I am torn in the writing of this section. On one hand I am bound by loyalty to stick by George Lucas and his universe. On the other hand... The Phantom Menace sucked! Midichlorians, George? Midichlorians! George Lucas, while you are a great storyteller, you're an atrocious director! (Which Star Wars were the sweetest? Empire and Jedi, directed by...well, not George Lucas.) How can you manage to stifle talent like Ewan McGregor and Liam Neeson? I can picture the set, Ewan and Liam are acting their hearts out, you get up there and say, "That was good fella's but, a little less emotion, a little more 'I'm a Jedi Knight and I don't have a soul. Pretend you're robots, or high school drama actors.'" That had to have continued several times for each scene until you finally got the horrible take that you used for your final edition. George, since I was twelve I'd been looking forward to this! I was one of the losers who waited for opening night! Albeit in my little town they only sold out one screen. During the opening when we saw the scrolling text and heard John Williams' familiar theme we all cheered! Then we were a little confused with the plot, and then we were annoyed with the horrible acting of the supporting cast, and even the main cast. We had heard about a completely CGI character, and were all for allowing you creative license, but when we met Jar Jar Binks and his race of ghetto toad people, we were more than slightly upset. When Qui-Gon gave Anakin a midi-chlorian test and we found out Vader was supposed to have been birthed by them we were stumped. Then you had the sweetest villain, yes, sweeter than Vader himself, cut in half by a half-hearted attempt on the part of Obi-Wan we were angry. Then you had Anakin (who was poorly cast as the incredibly annoying Jake Lloyd) accidently save the day by crashing his ship into the alien mother-ship. Come on Lucas! We're devout fans who have shed blood at Star Trek conventions over which universe is more totally sweet! After the horrid prequels you made, I can no longer stand by my claim that a Star Destroyer would defeat a Klingon Bird-of-Prey. I don't even care. I will watch the original trilogy and try to forget what I have seen. Except for Darth Maul'ssweet lightsaber battle. I still watch that from time to time.

Thank you, Hollywood, for giving us these disappointments, for ridding us of fond memories of the originals in place of ghastly afterthoughts. We will continue to flock to see the sequel, and we will continue to pretend like we expected it to be "even better than the original", or at least as good, or at least not quite so bad. We are suckers, aren't we?

Honorable Mention

Homeward Bound II- Loved the original story of loveable pets traipsing through the wilderness, wasn't so fond of the urban story.

Air Bud II-XII- The idea of a dog playing basketball was kind of fun. Football? Not so fun anymore. Soccer? Um, we get the idea. Lacrosse? We might as well expect it.

Superman Returns- And we wish he hadn't. We're still gagging at Lana Lang's acting in Smallville; do we have to watch this?

Rocky V - Well, at least it made us more grateful for Rocky Balboa.

Rambo - Wait, this one was totally awesome. The best in the series! Maybe I'll have to make another list.