Film sequels are very often reviled, and very rarely valued above the original. What are some film sequels that out-do the first installment? Here are some of my picks.
American Pie 2 & American Wedding
Bad Boys 2
Blade 2
Spider-Man 2
Star Trek: Wrath of Kahn, First Contact, and Nemisis
Terminator 2
Some films are very hard to call. The entire Naked Gun series is about equally funny. LOTR films I don't count because they were all written and green-lit and shot at the same time, though I'd argue Two Towers is easily the best of that series. Toy Story 2 is too close to call.
The most argued over series has to be Star Wars, though I'd argue that the first(1977) is the best of the series. However, anyone arguing for one of the other original films would have a very credible case; forget about the crappy prequels.
Anything I'm missing? Agreements, disagreements?
3 comments:
Usually, movies get only one chance to impress me. If they can't make it interesting within the first 20 minutes, then they play-write and/or director are not skillful enough to make a good movie. There are exceptions to this of course, but none come to mind right now.
And sequels work the same way. If I didn't like the first one then I probably won't like the second one. If I do like the first one, and if the second one is even better, thats icing on the cake, but not something I expect to happen too often.
I don't know what you think but I have 1 suggested addition to your list:
Matrix Reloaded
You already know what I think about the third one. Also, I couldn't stand any of the American Pie movies. And I have come to realize that I hate any movie based on comic books with the exception of Batman 1 and X-Men 1 and 2. DC and Marvel hasn't done too good a job making any movie that is any more than just another patch in pop-culture quilt. Nothing of artistic value at all. In fact, they usually make it even more rediculous by trying to add in a philosophy or by trying to give their characters more than 2 dimensions. Making comic characters try to seem in-depth is ridiculous. Usually, comic characters are stuck with the one or two dimensions that made them popular to begin with. That I use the word "dimension" is not intended to be a pun on comics being drawn on paper or anything.
Anyway, I've gone off on a tangent. But that's what I am thinking as I read this post.
I considered Matrix Reloaded, but all in all I think I like each film equally. You're right about films needing to be interesting in the first 20 minutes; I'm not sure if there are many good movies with a bad start. Ditto a bad ending.
I'm still surprised you hated Spider-Man 2 so much. I loathed the first installment, but was totally thrilled by the second.
I'm not sure I've ever disagreed with anything either of you has said more than I disagree with your assessment of Matrix Reloaded.
Both of the following Matrix installments were simply films that didn't need to be made. They took an utterly beautiful and interesting concept which was well received by the public and did exactly what I expect hollywood to do, trash it for easy money.
I think James is right about the 1970's Star Wars movies, except for the fact that I consider "The Empire Strikes Back" to be superior in every way to "A New Hope" except for it's lack of Alec Guiness.
As a side note to that, I would like to put forward that having ewan macgregor as a young alec guiness is one of the best casting decisions ever made.
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