The arrival of My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 this week got us thinking about movies that don’t necessarily require sequels – and sequels that added nothing to their franchise. Here’s a list of movies that insulted the films they followed and made the world a worse place at the same time. (And before you ask, the only reason we didn’t include Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen is because doing so would imply the first Transformers movie was any good to begin with.)
Down The Road Again (2011)
Don Shebib’s Goin’ Down The Road is a Canadian classic. This sequel, made three decades later, is not: it’s a wheezy, flat and utterly unnecessary follow-up that contrives to send Doug McGrath’s Pete on a road trip from Vancouver to Cape Breton to scatter the ashes of his old pal Joey. Paul Bradley, who played that character, died in 2003, and his spirit is sorely missed by both the surviving characters and the audience. Worse, Shebib seems intent on ignoring the fact that his original film was a tragedy. Slapping a sunny redemption angle onto Pete’s trip just doesn’t work. NW
A Good Day To Die Hard (2013)
John McTiernan’s Die Hard may be the best action movie ever produced, and given that high bar, it’s actually remarkable that two of its sequels – 1995’s Die Hard With A Vengeance and 2007’s Live Free Or Die Hard – come close to recapturing its mixture of wit, energy and weary charm. Hell, even Renny Harlin’s just-okay Die Hard 2 seems like a modern classic compared with this boneheaded fifth sequel. Here, director John Moore and screenwriter Skip Woods shove Bruce Willis’s now entirely indestructible John McClane into an eastern European demolition derby that ranges from Moscow to freaking Chernobyl after a trip to see his son (Jai Courtney) lands him smack in the middle of a coup. If this were a generic action movie that just happened to star Willis, it would be disappointing. As a Die Hard movie, it verges on blasphemy. NW
The Hangover Part II (2011)
Here’s an example of a sequel going through the motions, ticking off the original’s hit moments to create a formulaic turd. There’s an animal in the room (check), this time a monkey. Stu decides to sing a song (check). Car chase, missing friend, people shooting at them (check, check and check). You can also put this film on a list of movies with improbable premises. I mean, really, after that reckless, almost fatal trip to Las Vegas, would any same group of guys go back? SGC
Home Alone 2: Lost In New York (1992)
This shameless retread – a blatant cash grab – simply restages the action of John Hughes and Chris Columbus’s 1990 blockbuster in a new location, with the easily distracted Kevin McAllister boarding the wrong plane on a family vacation, ending up in Manhattan and running afoul of the Wet Bandits all over again. Two years after Die Hard 2, the movie-going public was willing to believe that the same shit could happen to the same guy twice – but Home Alone 2 doesn’t even bother to have fun with the concept. You get the feeling Hughes and Columbus were just trying to get another movie made before Macaulay Culkin hit puberty. NW
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
Was it ego that made Steven Spielberg think this sequel was required – it’s not like he needed the cash? Sure, the dinosaurs were spectacular in the first flick, but even they fell into the been there, done that category once Lost World hit the screen. And it was a very bad decision to make Jeff Goldblum, the most irritating member of the original’s cast, the central character. But basically, once the kids almost get slaughtered in the original by the raptors and the T. Rex goes nuts and it’s obvious that these creatures cannot be controlled, isn’t it time to shut the damn park down? SGC
RoboCop 2 (1990)
Irvin Kershner’s follow-up to Paul Verhoeven’s profoundly political dystopia understands nothing about the original. Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner’s sly script for the first film found a way to inject irony and humour – who can forget RoboCop shooting the rapist in the nuts? – to a story about police corruption. In this case, Frank Miller and Walon Green’s screenplay is a witless, lazy mess: “Hey, let’s invent another Robocop to fight the first one.” And their emphasis on violence takes RoboCop’s humanity away entirely. SGC
Rocky V (1990)
If we’re being honest, most of the Rocky sequels are unnecessary. II deepens the relationship between Rocky and Apollo, which feeds directly into last year’s Creed, but III is ridiculous and IV even more so. Rocky V, on the other hand, is just bad: another blatant cash grab in which writer/producer/star Sylvester Stallone orchestrates a scenario where Rocky can be the underdog again.
Bankrupted by a crooked accountant and suffering from brain damage sustained in Rocky IV’s Ivan Drago fight, Rocky takes ownership of Mickey’s gym and starts over as a trainer, only to take on a hotheaded boxer (Tommy Morrison) who turns on him. It’s nice to see Stallone and Talia Shire together again for what turned out to be the last time. But the things that happen in this movie are so pointless that Stallone simply ignored them in 2006’s Rocky Balboa, – even letting Rocky magically get over that career-ending brain damage. NW
normw@nowtoronto.com | @normwilner
