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10 Hilariously Awful Sequels To Awesome Movies That Will Make You Wonder What Went Wrong
Pretty much any time a movie gets massively popular, studios will instantly start looking at making sequels out of it. In theory, making a sequel shouldn't be that hard: take what was great about the first movie, and make it bigger and better!
In practice though, most sequels end up being cheap cash-ins on a well-known brand, and in the case of these 10 movies, they were so bad they often did irreparable damage to their franchises.
Home Alone 3
The first two Home Alone movies are some of the most beloved Christmas comedies of all time, and it's easy to see why. Between great performances, genuine Christmas spirit, hilarious lines (I still say "Merry Christmas ya filthy animal" every December), and stellar writing by Breakfast Club director John Hughes, you'd think they'd have known to leave things there.
Unfortunately, Home Alone 3 happened. Hughes returned as the scriptwriter, but literally nobody else from the original production did, and it both looks and feels like the cheap cash grab that it is. For some reason though, Roger Ebert said it was "better than the first one." Gene Siskel nearly fell out of his chair in disbelief.
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
Okay, I admit it: the first Mortal Kombat movie isn't exactly a cinematic masterpiece. Y'know what it IS though? Well-made, fun as hell, and surprisingly faithful to the video game it's based on. Oh, and let's not forget that freaking awesome soundtrack.
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation on the other hand is just a pile of awful. It has like a 10th of the budget, all the actors have been swapped out, the dialogue is hilariously bad, and so is the acting. It's a great time if you wanna watch a "so bad it's good" movie, but otherwise, stay FAR away.
Blues Brothers 2000
What do you do when you want to make a sequel to a genuine classic after nearly 20 years and one of its two main actors have both passed? Hire said actor's less-talented brother and make a total rehash of the first movie of course!
The movie finds Jake and Elwood heading out on another "mission from God" to help out their orphanage, but while the first one was fun and exciting, this one ends up being dull, repetitive, and frankly just unpleasant to watch.
Highlander II: The Quickening
The original Highlander was an awesome action movie about immortal warriors fighting each other to claim each other's power, and it had some great performances by Christopher Lambert, Clancy Brown, and Sean Freaking Connery!
The sequel, while it features several of these actors and even adds Michael Ironside into the mix, is so over-acted and terribly written that it feels like Star Wars Episode I when compared to the original. Worst of all, they made the immortals aliens from a planet called Zeist. No, I am not kidding.
The sequels just get worse from here...
Literally every sequel to a Disney movie that wasn't Aladdin.
Before anyone chimes in, the Aladdin sequels were pretty solid. Especially Aladdin and the King of Thieves, which Robin Williams not only came back for, but also featured stars like John Rhys-Davies and Jerry Orbach!
The rest though? Ugh. Whether it's Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas, The Lion King 2: Simba's Pride, Cinderella 2, The Little Mermaid 2 or even freaking Peter Pan: Return to Neverland, these sequels do nothing except make their franchises worse.
Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights
The original Dirty Dancing pretty much put Patrick Swayze on the map as a leading man, and to this day it's one of the biggest and best-selling dance movies of all time. Seriously, it made $253 million on a budget of only $3 million!
The studio didn't believe in the original before it came out, but after seeing THAT kind of money, they believed in it enough to make a sequel almost 20 years later, featuring none of the original cast or crew! This went about as well as you expected, and unlike the original, this one completely bombed.
Speed 2: Cruise Control
You'd be hard-pressed to find a more exciting 90s action movie than the original Speed. With a simple premise of a bus being wired to explode if its speed drops below a certain point, well-directed action, and solid performances from Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock, and Dennis Hopper, the movie still holds up REALLY well today, and you should totally check it out if you haven't already.
Whatever you do though, avoid its sequel like the plague. Between Bullock being the only returning cast member, setting the movie on a cruise ship, and replacing all the fast, tense action with boring moments of nothing happening, it basically has nothing that made the original great.
Staying Alive
Did you know Saturday Night Fever got a sequel? And that it was directed by Sylvester Freaking Stallone?! Because I sure didn't until recently!
In theory it shouldn't have been hard to follow up the wonderfully cheesy John Travolta classic with more of what people already liked about it, but Stallone tried a different approach that absolutely failed miserably. The movie's more like a Rocky movie if you replaced boxing with dancing, and it goes right past "lovably cheesy" and into "just plain stupid" territory.
Son of the Mask
Remember when Jamie Kennedy was a thing? Chances are that, if you were a teenager in the early 2000s, you honestly wish you could forget.
After a decent performance in the Scream franchise, Kennedy somehow landed a few leading roles, and proved once and for all that he wasn't cut out for it. The worst of these was this sequel to the Jim Carrey classic that manages to be neither funny or exciting. Seriously, just watch the original instead.
Batman and Robin
The two Tim Burton Batman movies are some of the most iconic and awesome superhero movies of all time, but Warner Bros wasn't happy with how dark they ended up being. Enter director Joel Schumacher, whose Batman Forever was definitely funnier and more kid-friendly, but still had some great moments, especially with Jim Carrey as The Riddler.
Batman and Robin on the other hand is considered to be one of the worst movies ever made. Between its absurdly cheesy writing, ridiculous performances by otherwise talented actors, cheap-looking effects, and the fact that the whole thing feels more like a live action cartoon for toddlers than a Batman movie, the movie bombed so hard it nearly killed the chance for more Batman movies in the future.