I recently revisited the 1983 disaster Staying Alive, a movie so bad it's a miracle anyone involved (including writer-director Sylvester Stallone and its star John Travolta) ever worked again. It's nominally supposed to be a sequel to the 1977 blockbuster Saturday Night Fever but it betrays almost everything that made the earlier film interesting and indelible.Travolta gives perhaps one of the most unlikable performances of all time, exaggerating everything that was subtle in his earlier, Oscar-nominated portrayal of wannabe dancer Tony Manero. In this film, he's trying to make it on Broadway while also trying to romance two of his fellow dancers at the same time.
The threadbare plot has him constantly making plans with one or the other each night -- this character apparently can never sleep alone -- or strutting, sneering and staring at his own image in the mirror. It culminates with a jaw dropping and incomprehensible (not to mention wordless) Broadway show called "Satan's Alley" that just needs to be seen to be believed.
Besides essentially beat for beat providing the plot for the movie Showgirls -- it's an incredibly disappointing movie (although a fun bad movie watch with friends) and that got me thinking about terrible sequels. Not simply ones that got bad reviews or flopped or should have never been made in the first place (like say Weekend at Bernie's II) but movies that I have vivid memories of being let down by. These were sequels that could have been good, maybe even great. But instead they were cynical money grabs that more often than not betrayed what we loved about their predecessors.
To be honest, The Rise of Skywalker almost made this list. It's a movie that loses esteem the more I think about it. There are wonderful things in it and I don't think it's the failure so many Star Wars fans do, but you can't shake how clearly influenced it is by the backlash (from some people) against The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. Even viewing it charitably you must concede its compromised and can't hold a candle to its predecessors.
Here are some more part twos and threes that left a bad taste in my mouth.
The Lost World & every other Jurassic Park film - Like a lot of people I saw The Lost World in theaters and had a blast with it, but when you revisit that film later you'll find that it's Spielberg really phoning it in. Jeff Goldblum is a delight and refreshing as a leading man, but there's little else to enjoy here. What was originally a smart sci-fi adventure has become a slasher film with dinosaurs, and it simply had no reason to exist. Each subsequent Jurassic Park film was even worse as it became harder and harder to explain why people keep financing theme parks with a history multiple people getting killed there. How this always yet another island full of genetically enhanced dinosaurs? This should have been one and done but people keep flocking to these for some reason.
The Austin Powers sequels - Here's another case of -- I loved it as a teenager -- but not sheesh. The first Austin Powers film still holds up as an original and funny concept and I initially thought the bigger and broader sequels were a hoot. But when I revisited them a year or so ago I was reminded of what smug, product placement-y endeavors they were. Gone (for the most part) were sly parodies of 60s culture and the Bond films, and instead we got far too many feces jokes, one note grotesque characters like Fat Bastard and an over-reliance on previously established gags and one liners. The overuse of Dr. Evil in particular is a bummer. He was my favorite part of that first film (and Myers played him relatively straight) but by the third film he was insufferable.
The Hangover II - I will never forget my theater experience with this movie. It was a hot summer day and I remember the air conditioning broke. The theater offered folks free tickets to another screening or you could stick it out and I remember being so eager to see the film that I decided to stick it out. Big mistake. A largely humorless (and unforgivably transphobic) affair -- The Hangover II (and The Hangover III too, really) is a great example of why comedy sequels rarely, if ever, are a good idea. It's not fun to sit through less funny versions of the same jokes or commit to watching characters make the same dumb mistakes a second time -- especially when the characters weren't exactly pleasant in the first place.
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| The Exorcist II |
The Terminator franchise - Where to begin with this one -- after the iconic Terminator 2 this franchise has zigged and zagged all over the place, squandering what was once one of the most badass series in movies. I actually don't mind Terminator 3, it's pretty silly but at least the action is solid. But Terminator: Salvation is a bore -- when it didn't need to be. Terminator: Genysis is a confusing mess. And while I think Dark Fate made great use of an aging Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton, the plot they're placed in is largely just a retread of earlier, better films. I fear at this point there may be no salvaging this series. Perhaps there biggest mistake was relying so much on the presence of Schwarzenegger even after he'd clearly become to old to be a credible robotic killing machine, or maybe it's just that they've tied themselves in knots with the timeline they established. Either way I've been fooled too many times but this series and I won't be fooled again.
Live Free or Die Hard - Oh man did I hate this movie. I went in with high hopes -- having loved the original three Die Hard movies and I was appalled by this overblown junk. First off, after establishing John McClane (Bruce Willis) as a vulnerable and fallible hero in the first three films, he is somehow an impervious to pain superhero in this one (even though he's considerably older). The premise is far too elaborate and James Bondian for this franchise, they saddle Willis with annoying sidekick (a whiny Justin Long) and they won't even let him say his profane catchphrase at the end. I never even saw the fifth Die Hard, which is supposed to be even worse, because I could tell after this one the franchise was headed nowhere good.
The Matrix Revolutions - I know there a passionate defenders out there of The Matrix sequels and I will always admit, terrible CGI aside, The Matrix Reloaded has some truly fantastic action set pieces (I am thinking of the highway chase in particular with Morpheus fighting on top of a moving truck). But the third film was a dour, depressing mess. The series makes the massive misstep of stripping away the charisma of Keanu Reeves by covering up his eyes and sets far too much action in the drag, ugly home base of the heroes who must fight endless streams of cgi robotic jellyfish. It's the one thing a movie like this should never be -- a total bore.
US Marshalls - I actually saw this one in full for the first time recently. This cable staple always intrigued me since I am such a massive fan of 1993's The Fugitive and Tommy Lee Jone's Oscar-winning portrayal of the dogged lawman Sam Gerard. You can easily see how a film centered on him and his likable team going after another fugitive would be great, but for some filmmakers for some reason made decision to simply do a weak retread of the first film. Why not have Gerard going after a fugitive who was actually guilty this time? That would have been exciting!
Prometheus* - I know directly Ridley Scott took great pains to try to establish Prometheus as not being a sequel or whatever to Alien but c'mon -- I mean I'll give it an asterisk, but really who went to this movie not expecting it to be an exciting return to the universe he created in the original. And what a colossal disappointment it was. Sure, it looked great and had lots of atmosphere -- but it amounted to nothing. And then the BS ending, which basically revealed that yes, this as another Alien movie after all felt like a big fuck you to the audience. I went to the next Alien film too (whose name escapes me, it was that unmemorable) because I'm a sucker for a good trailer. Ughh!
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