Loading ...Sequels that are WORSE than you might remember
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Loading ...by Dale J. Nauertz
Much as you might think the sequel was born in the 1980’s (it certainly seems that way) such was not the case. The sequel has actually been with us nearly as long as motion pictures have existed. The first sequel was released way back in 1916. It was “Fall of a Nation”, the followup to D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation”. So it seems that rampant racism was not that film’s only crime. Not all sequels suck, but enough of them do to give the word “sequel” negative connotations. There are plenty of lists floating around the internet of the greatest sequels of all time (I may even make such a list myself, should the mood strike) but what about those that give the word “sequel” its negative connotations in the first place. There must be some reason sequels allegedly suck, right? And some of them may even be films you look back on pleasantly. Some films that you consider examples of sequels done right, in fact, suck more than you may remember. Don’t believe me? Well, consider these prime examples:
“Smokey and the Bandit 2″
The original “Smokey and the Bandit” isn’t exactly “The Godfather”, so “Smokey and the Bandit 2″ didn’t have to do much in order to succeed. All it had to do, like “Smokey and the Bandit” before it, was provide some car chases and some laughs. Even with these modest expectations, however, “Smokey and the Bandit 2″ is a resounding failure. Some of you may harbor fond memories of this film. I know I did…until I watched it again several years ago. That’s because we haven’t seen it since we were in elementary school. Nobody has, and there’s a good reason for that: to anyone above the age of eight, this film is appallingly awful. The first miscalculation the filmmakers behind “Smokey and the Bandit 2″ made was gearing it toward children instead of beer-swilling rednecks. The original film regarded Burt Reynolds’ attempts to transport beer across state lines, something I didn’t even know was illegal, and being pursued by overrated actor/obsessive sheriff Jackie Gleason. The second has him transporting a pregnant elephant and Dom Deluise (I know, I know, it’s like two of the same thing). Instead of frenetic car chases and plenty of beer drinking, all “Smokey and the Bandit 2″ provides are allegedly heart-tugging scenes involving an elephant or allegedly hilarious scenes of Dom Deluise using an atrocious Italian accent. Sally Field looks bored, and Burt Reynolds appears retarded, so the filmmakers have relied on Jackie Gleason to do most of the work, comedy-wise. Now, Gleason was comedic gold as the “Smokey” part of the equation in the original film. I’ve never understood the appeal of “The Honeymooners”, but Gleason’s enthusiastic (and, according to Hollywood legend, completely drunken) portrayal of Buford T. Justice is one for the ages. So how do you improve on that? How about we give him….wait for it…a HEART CONDITION! The possibility of a fat man dying of a heart attack is universally hilarious, right? Right? Nope, sorry fellas, it’s not funny in the least, especially considering that Jackie only hung on for another couple of years after the movie was finished. As if that wasn’t tasteless or desperate enough, the filmmakers also had Jackie play multiple characters. Not only is he Buford, but he also plays Buford’s law-enforcing cousins who are 1) flamboyantly, stereotypically, 80’s gay and (2) a strict military man. Neither of these characters are remotely funny. The first, in fact, is pretty damned embarrassing. Not only is the film devoid of laughs, but there is only a single car chase…and Burt Reynolds appears to be in a completely different state from the car involved. Nobody expected much from “Smokey and the Bandit 2″ and yet, it seems, expectations were still too high.
“Lethal Weapon 4″
I’ll let you in on a little secret: aside from the Bond films (and those don’t count) there has never been a good fourth movie. The closest Hollywood has ever given us is “Alien Resurrection” and even that wasn’t exactly spectacular (it was, however, better than any other fourth installment I can name). Yet most people have fond memories of “Lethal Weapon 4″. That’s probably because people love Jet Li and the only scene they can accurately recall is the one where that guy with the flame thrower is blowing shit up. That scene is pretty cool…until Danny Glover defuses the situation by taking his pants off and flapping his arms like a chicken, all at Mel Gibson’s insistence. Gibson and Glover are a great team, even in a turd like this, but “Lethal Weapon 4″ goes the route of the later, Schumacher-helmed, “Batman” flicks and adds more famous actors than any single movie needs. Gibson and Glover are fine and we’ve all accepted Joe Pesci’s involvement by this point (though Pesci’s performance here makes one think wistfully back onto the scene where he gets destroyed with a baseball bat in “Casino”), but…Chris Rock? I have nothing against Chris Rock…but he’s not even playing a character here, he’s simply reciting jokes from his stand-up act (and not even the really good ones). The original “Lethal Weapon” was a tightly wound, dramatically potent yet surprisingly funny example of a buddy cop film done to absolute perfection. “Lethal Weapon 2″ added a bit more comedy, but still retained its teeth. “Lethal Weapon 3″ was not as good, but it was a lot of fun. “Lethal Weapon 4″, however, is a flat-out sitcom. It’s all comedy (lame, standard-issue situational comedy at that), very little action, and what little action it does provide is pretty ridiculous (they actually jump a car off a freeway, drive through a BUILDING, and then drive out the other side of the building and back onto the freeway). Also, I love Mel Gibson more than the next guy (though he keeps making it harder) but there is no way in hell that he would be able to last more than three seconds against Jet Li. It just isn’t possible. What little goodwill I had toward this film was effectively shattered by the moment where our heroes interrogate a ruthless Chinese gangster using laughing gas. That’s not tense or funny or…or ANYTHING, really. This movie is full of the sort of shit they would have done in an episode of “Three’s Company”. Every gag in this film either involves laughing gas or racism (Mel’s Asian jokes are a lot less funny in light of his recent antics) or, a’la “Three’s Company”, some sort of convoluted and wacky misunderstanding. I love the first three “Lethal Weapon” movies, but this was just one too many trips to the well as far as I’m concerned.
“Ghostbusters 2″
I lay the failure of “Ghostbusters 2″ squarely on the shoulders of one man: Bill Murray. The first thirty minutes or so are fine. Not nearly as good as the first “Ghostbusters”, but fine. But once the ghostbusters go back into business, however, Bill Murray just wanders off into his own movie and the whole enterprise suffers. Don’t get me wrong, I love Aykroyd, Ramis and Ernie Hudson, but Bill is the smart-ass of the group and without him it’s like a Marx Brothers movie without Groucho. Apparently, Bill didn’t want to wear the proton pack or get covered in slime this time, he just wanted to cash his paycheck. So while Dan and Harold and Ernie are investigating a river of mood slime(???) beneath New York City, Bill Murray is off remaking “Annie Hall” with Sigourney Weaver. We get to see Venkman’s softer side which, personally, I have absolutely no interest in. This is a “Ghostbusters” movie, Bill. Nobody cares about you taking Sigourney out to a fancy restaurant and admitting that you acted like a dickhead. We want ghosts, slime, and big special-effects laden apocalypses! Oh, and as for the rest of the film…it’s not all that great either. Instead of a looming armageddon at the hands of a pissed off ancient god we get some loser who worships a painting and a river of pink ooze….oh, and a baby. They went and crammed a baby in there too, apparently because “Three Men and a Baby” made a ton of money. I used to like this movie (maybe you did too) but now I can’t even make it through the whole thing. Trust me, try watching it again and you’ll see just how pathetic it is.
“Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”
“But, Dale,” you’re probably saying, “that’s the best one!” Well, you’re wrong…and shut up. It is perhaps the best movie on this list, I’ll admit that. It’s plenty of fun, the action sequences rock and Sean Connery is great in it. But examine it closely and it’s really just a tired retread of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and, therefore, an example of the sort of sequel I hate most of all: the remake. So many sequels don’t even bother coming up with an exciting new adventure for all the characters we loved the first time around. Instead, they just dust off the script from the first movie, maybe change the name of the trinket everyone’s after, add a couple new characters that really aren’t all that different from characters in the first film, and put a “2″ after the title. “Temple of Doom” was one of those awesome sequels (okay, fine, technically it’s a “prequel”, whatever) that actually provided something completely different from its predecessor. The only thing they have in common is the main character, really. Different setting, different tone, different supporting characters, and yet it carried over the same exciting spirit and sense of adventure while navigating through much darker thematic territory. (I’ll even defend Kate Capshaw, why not?) It must have been SUCH a dark, bold experiment, however, that the audience complained. Thus, aside from interjecting some neat family issues by including Indy’s father, Lucas and Spielberg played it far too safe this time around. There’s more humor, less of the danger that made the first two installments so exciting, and basically more of the same stuff everyone loved the first time. Once again Indy is looking for a mystical Christian object. Once again he’s battling the Nazis. Once again he’s running around the desert. He’s even dodging a cavern full of booby traps again. It even brings back Sallah and Brody rather than go through all the trouble of introducing new characters. Another reason “Last Crusade” kinda sucks is that it has some of the dumbest moments any good movie has ever forced us to suffer through: that lame scene where a Nazi plane follows Indy’s car through a tunnel rather than just flying over the tunnel and attacking them on the other side, for example, losing its wings and exploding in the process. Or that idiotic moment where Indy and his dad are trying to escape from the Nazis so they launch a motorboat as a decoy for the Nazis to follow…and then they burst out of a crate on a motorcycle BEFORE THE NAZIS HAVE A CHANCE TO CHASE THE BOAT! I mean, why’d they even bother? And then there’s the fact that the whole movie looks like it was filmed on a sound stage. That was fine for a movie made back in the 1930’s but, in 1989, coming from the biggest director in the world, that’s just lazy. Oh well, at least it’s better than “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls”: that movie was just an indefensible pile of shit.
“Men in Black 2″
I already introduced the concept of the sequel that’s actually a remake. Well, here is the most egregious example of such a film. “Men in Black 2″ has absolutely, positively nothing new to offer AT ALL. Instead of Tommy Lee Jones training Will Smith we get Will Smith training Jones after he’s lost his memory. That’s the only new wrinkle. Otherwise they’re looking for a galaxy, again, though instead of it being on a cat’s collar it’s on Rosario Dawson’s bracelet (that’s what sadly passes for creativity in this day and age). The baddie of the film is yet another alien inhabiting human skin (in the skin of a supermodel instead of a redneck this time) and, well, the whole movie is just a collection of warmed over ideas. There are dozens of unique, new adventures the Men in Black could have had but I guess it was just easier for them to have the same one all over again. Incidentally, aside from being too lazy to write a new plot, it seems the screenwriters were also too lazy to write any jokes, because I laughed perhaps once during the entire film. Most people seemed to enjoy “Men in Black 2″. I haven’t heard anyone gushing over its greatness but when it is brought up in conversation, most people seem to look back on it pleasantly. What were those things called that the Men in Black used to erase memories? Neurolyzers? Well, it seems the general moviegoing public got neurolyzed on this one.
“Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me”
The original “Austin Powers” was a clever, fun little riff on Bond movies, Bond movie knockoffs and the Sixties in general. The sequel, which most people loved, is simply a collection of sub-par dick and fart jokes. It even takes the sweet little love story between Liz Hurley and Mike Myers that provided the emotional core of the first film and shits all over it by revealing her to be a fembot in the opening scene. It’s obvious this movie was made because Myers saw dollar signs and nothing more. When future generations try to pinpoint the exact moment where Mike Myers became a shrill, money-grubbing whore they’ll need look no further than this. Sporadically amusing, I’ll grant you, but not worth the effort.
“Scream 2″
Like the afore-mentioned “Austin Powers”, “Scream” was a pleasant surprise: an unexpected hit that breathed new life into a tired genre. Then “Scream 2″ came along and snatched that breath away all over again. “Scream 2″ slavishly follows the slasher formula. It kills off the “Scream” series’s most interesting character by the halfway point (thus marking the last time anyone ever looked forward to seeing Jamie Kennedy onscreen), its characters seemed to have forgotten anything they learned during the first film (thus making them stupider than ever) and the final twist elicits nothing more than a shrug. Oh My God, the killers were…who? Oh, I guess I remember that guy from that one scene…uh, sure, how shocking. Oh, and someone’s mom too? Um…wow, I guess. Everyone seemed to like “Scream 2″ (I think I even got dragged to it twice)…until the next weekend, when “Titanic” came along.
“Aliens”
“Whoa, Dale,” you’re thinking, “now you’re going too far! ‘Aliens’ is rad!” Yes, “Aliens” is a decent film. But it’s not without some major problems. Specifically (a) it takes waaaay too long to start and (b) it doesn’t know when to stop! The first hour of the film is an extended debriefing followed by some footage of Marines eating breakfast, for the most part. After that the movie gets a decent clip going…and then it just keeps going and going. There are at least two moments that would make a great ending which are ruined when some damned alien (Queen, I’m looking at you here) pops out and start another overblown sequence saved mainly by James Horner’s suspenseful score. Oh and, spoiler alert, the alien dies the same way as in the first movie! Another air lock? Lame! At least in the third installment (which is, admittedly, much worse than this one) they killed the alien by coating it in lead. I’m not saying it’s a great ending, but at least it didn’t involve another freakin’ air lock. If they’d just rolled credits after the friggin’ planet exploded this movie would have gained at least a fist. You can’t beat an exploding planet as an ending. If they don’t teach that in film school they probably should. Plus, c’mon, you can tell Paul Reiser is a corrupt douschebag the moment he shows up. There’s no surprise there. Still, it’s got Bill Paxton at his whiny loser best. And when Sigourney Weaver starts running around with a giant machine gun AND a massive flame-thrower, well, it doesn’t get much better than that. But is it better than the first one? Not a chance. In fact, for my money, it’s probably James Cameron’s worst narrative film.
“Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers”
Again, this isn’t a bad film by any stretch of the imagination. The reason it’s on this list, however, is because so many self-righteous schmucks proclaim it as the best of the series when it is, in fact, the worst. Yes, Gollum is in it and he does rule. Plus, there’s more footage of Christopher Lee in this movie. Most movies are improved by adding generous dollops of Christopher Lee. Oh, and ents. The ents rock, especially when they get good and pissed off. More movies need Christopher Lee and pissed off, walking trees. Can you imagine how much better “Sweet Home Alabama”, for example, would have been if they’d interjected Christopher Lee and an army of pissed off trees? Unfortunately, there are several things that keep “The Two Towers” from completely ruling. First of all, there are too many wacky dwarf jokes. In this film, Gimli goes from being a cool-ass dwarf warrior to being a walking punchline. Secondly, the battle of Helm’s Deep lasts roughly forty-five minutes and actually gets sorta boring by the end. A great battle sequence (like “Return of the King”’s Battle of Pelennor Fields, for example) builds and develops as it goes along. The heroes overcome one obstacle only to encounter a much bigger one, things of that nature. The Battle of Helm’s Deep just keeps going and going without building any additional momentum. If it weren’t for the kamikaze orcs, the sequence wouldn’t build AT ALL. A monotonous action sequence isn’t a big deal when it only lasts a few minutes. When it takes up the bulk of the film, however, you’ve got a problem. What else pissed me off? Glad you asked. How about Faramir. In the books, Faramir is a great character. He’s the one person in Middle Earth who openly doesn’t give a shit about The Ring. But in order to create tension where none was really needed, or maybe just to pad the film to three hours in length, Jackson makes him another greedy little bitch who leads the hobbits into even more CGI danger, therefore taking one of the few truly noble characters of Tolkien’s novels and turning him into yet another dousche. But the biggest problem with “The Two Towers” is that it alters the great, cliffhanger ending of the book. At the end of the novel, The Big Spider kills Frodo and Sam is left to make the trek to Mount Doom all by himself. That’s a damn dark ending and, if Peter Jackson would have kept it, this would have been “The Empire Strikes Back” with hobbits. But Pete postponed that scene until the middle of “Return of the King” instead. He did it because, chronologically, this event would have happened much later in the events of the books. Fine. I get it. But, still, when you’ve got a great, kick-in-the-nuts ending like that, you’ve GOT to use it. Oh well. Like I said, still a good film…just not the best of the bunch.
So, what have we learned? Well, if this article has a moral, I’d like to think it’s this: a good sequel tries something different than it did the first time, yet still retains the basic characters and intangible qualities that made the original film a success. Failing that, simply add Christopher Lee, pissed-off trees, a whiny Bill Paxton, and a hot chick with a huge flame-thrower and you’ve instantly got a better film.
