Are These Really The 8 Worst Movie Sequels Ever?

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I met Aaron Chumbris at a recent writer’s conference we attended in Eastern Pennsylvania. Aaron’s a nice guy who likes to write about figments of his imagination such as the ones appearing in his YA fantasy novel Duality. He’s also joined us in the world of Twitter, so give him a follow before you check his website.

Aaron thinks that some movie sequels are just terrible and wrote this guest post to prove his point.

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Police Academy Sequels

Police Academy gave us some classic cinematic characters: Bubba Smith’s imposing officer Hightower, the firepower-obsessed Tackleberry, and the ever-popular sound effects-based talents of Michael Winslow’s Larvell Jones. It also gave us a deluge of increasingly crappy sequels. I may be willing to vouch for the original trilogy, but beyond that I’ll probably change the channel on even the most boring and rainy Sunday afternoon.

The Godfather Part III

I love the first two Godfather films and believe they are among the greatest to ever to grace a movie screen. Yet I don’t think comparison is the biggest weakness of Part III. The biggest flaw is the story: who wants to see Michael Corleone as a legitimate businessman? We all know that’s the direction he wanted to go, but fate intervened and he became far more ruthless than his father, spilling the blood of his own brother. What made Michael great was his tragic perversion of the American Dream, a man who tried to reverse the inevitable path of his family’s legacy and paid a heavy price for his failure. Part III just drags out his suffering, making the audience suffer in the process.

Weekend at Bernie’s 2

How can you ruin a film that captures the madcap hilarity involved in carting around a decomposing corpse, passing him off as alive by putting sunglasses on him and thus keeping a hitman from realizing his target is already dead? By making a sequel where Bernie’s corpse must lead our protagonists to money hidden in the Virgin Islands, but only when he hears music! When the tagline is “You don’t have to stop partying just because you’ve stopped breathing,” you already know you’re in for something that stinks worse than a dead body in the tropical sun.

Jason X

Throwing a dash of science fiction into a long-running horror franchise might sound like a good way to revitalize it after so many sequels, but honestly, what was the point of this movie? The heretofore invincible Jason ends up in a future where people finally have weapons that can rip him to pieces, only to be reborn as an invincible cyborg. We already had horror and sci-fi meet in space. It was called Alien. It was awesome. Watch that and its excellent sequel instead.

The Matrix Reloaded

I won’t use this space to bash the film. There are tons of critical reviews that already pick it apart. Instead, I’ll praise it for its great special effects and inventive action sequences. But those two aspects alone do not make a great film. In the Wachowskis’ defense, I believe the fault lay not in The Matrix Reloaded, but the simple fact that The Matrix was simply too good to make a follow-up. When a film revolutionizes moviemaking the way it did, any effort to top it is likely to fail.  And fail it did, so much so that I never bothered to watch the third one.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

Aside from adding to the annoying trend of adding the word “rise” to sequel names (can we stop that one, please?), Terminator 3 brought nothing new to the franchise, unless you consider a hot Terminator a revolutionary concept. I realize it’s not easy to fill James Cameron’s shoes, but if the best you have to offer is more of the same, why bother? Whether or not you liked Terminator: Salvation, at least it tried something different by taking place in the future we always heard about but rarely saw.

Big Momma’s House 2

When the first Big Momma’s House came out, I thought to myself, “Wow, Martin Lawrence must really need some money.” When the second one came out, I thought, “No one is that charitable.” What? There’s a third one? Does he really hate us all that much?

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

I loved The Mummy and thought The Mummy Returns was a respectable sequel, even if it never captured quite the same cinematic hold of the original. So when I heard the third movie would center around one of my favorite actors, Jet Li, I was hopeful about the end result. Unfortunately, I should’ve done like Rachel Weisz and kept clear of this one. Not only did it seem like Jet Li played second fiddle to his CGI double, but the movie had absolutely none of the appeal of the first film. It was full of nonstop action, which is great unless you care about little things like character or emotional investment, but anyone looking for fun or actual excitement is better off watching the first two again.

Do you agree with these picks?

What’s the worst sequel you’ve ever seen?

The Friday Flick Faceoff features films that share a common thread. Cast your vote anyway you like and don’t worry if you’ve seen all the movies or not. Love to hear why you picked what you picked though!

If you’ve got writing chops and would like to be considered as a guest poster for an FFF you can reach me through the Contact page.