Original movie scripts that attract a large audience in the movie theaters are relatively rare and very difficult to write, to make and to produce. Owing to these difficulties, producers regularly tell themselves “The first movie worked well. It would be a good idea to make a sequel!”, which is not always a good idea… The second movie is often only average or even of good quality sometimes and the third one will be disappointing or mediocre in 99.9% of cases and will give a bad image to what could have been a perfect movie if the producers had stopped after the first episode.
If you are still not convinced, here is a top 5 of the movies we found the most disappointing:
Shrek
Shrek looks almost as happy to star in this movie as we are to see it…
Shrek belongs to the animated movies we will all remember. With its totally offbeat humour, its perfect antihero, and a heroine that was surprising at all levels, it was a modern fairy tale that everybody liked. The second episode charmed us thanks to innovations such as Puss in Boots and characters that we loved to discover. The third one is nothing memorable and almost makes the two first episodes lose their charm.
The Matrix
Many will criticise my point of view but, to me, The Matrix would have been a perfect movie if the trilogy had stopped after the first episode. Neo becomes “the One”, the comeback is perfect, there is a love story between the two main characters and all is well that ends well. Two other movies were added, the second one is almost at the same level than the first one and remains original, intelligently made, and has very good actions scenes. In fact, its only fault is to precede the third episode, which is disturbing and doesn’t bring anything compared to its two predecessors, is a bit too long, far less logical and finally hasn’t much interest for the series…
The Hobbit
The Hobbit is a magnificent book that is rather easy to read and perfectly suits a young audience but can also appeal to adults. With less than 400 pages, it can be read rapidly and keeps us in suspense page after page to make us discover new characteristics of the characters and their world in every chapter. The movie could have had a similar taste if it had been made in a single episode, which would have avoided the making of three movies that are too long and will appeal to tenacious fans but would never have been successful if they hadn’t taken place in the world of the Lord of the Rings.
Jurassic Park
Ah Jurassic Park! A masterpiece from the beginning of the 90s that featured very well realised dinosaurs and made many of us dream. At the end of the movie, everybody wanted to be able to meet dinosaurs one day and to play with them, without even thinking about the tragic scenes of the movie. We all thought that Spielberg was going to stop there, but we were wrong! After a mediocre second episode, a third one that was more than disappointing, they continued until Jurassic World this year, which was almost at the level of Sharknado in its lack of logic and becomes almost funny. I totally understand that this theme is really interesting but some effort is required if you want to make a sequel to a movie that appealed to millions of people.
Men In Black
Men In Black is a little more complex in its genre, with a first movie that is very original, funny and intelligently made, a second one that didn’t meet the same criteria and a third one that managed to almost reach the level of the first episode. I thus hesitated before putting it in this top 5. I finally decided to do so for two reasons: first, to prevent anybody from EVER watching the second episode and to show that, despite a deceiving second episode, it is one of the rare film sequels that managed to get back to the top after such a disaster.
Don’t hesitate to leave a comment if you disagree, it would be interesting to have other points of view from people who liked these movies, or not.
