10 Dreariest Film Sequels Released In 2016 (So Far)

Same story different decade.

Anne Hathaway Alice Through The Looking Glass
Disney

“Hollywood appears to be running out of new ideas,” wrote Harry and Michael Medved in 1980. “The number of remakes, sequels and readily-recognizable spin-offs of established winners has easily exceeded the tally of truly original concepts.”

The art of whining about Hollywood’s output is older than most people reading this, and in 2016 finding sequels to gripe about is like shooting fish in a barrel. There was The Conjuring 2, which after attempting to convince us that the Amityville haunting was not a hoax, whisked the viewer to Enfield for a “true” ghost story full of gor blimey accents and pop songs that didn’t fit the 1977 setting.

Then there was X-Men: Apocalypse, a lot of sound and fury that attempted to gloss over the fact that none of the characters looked much different than they did in X-Men: First Class, despite the passage of some twenty years. Following an overblown (yet oddly perfunctory) climax, the open-ended final scene conveniently left the door open for further installments.

As far as multiplex sequels went in the first half of 2016, this was as good as it got, and as we will see, you could do far worse.

10. Alice Through The Looking Glass

Anne Hathaway Alice Through The Looking Glass
Disney

Alice Through The Looking Glass is either ersatz Tim Burton or ersatz Lewis Carroll, but either way it’s a very forgiving viewer who considers it anything more than a lot of cinematic trickery in support of a succession of hollow set pieces. Not only has the law of diminishing returns set in, everything is weaker (and less fun) this time around.

Who wants to see Alice return to Underland and once again encounter The Mad Hatter, The Red Queen et al? Clearly Disney does (the original made over a billion dollars), so the viewer is going along whether they like it or not. What do they get for their trouble? A sense of contractual obligation.

On the plus side, the filmmakers have fixed one of the most obvious flaws with the original and done away with the closing song by Avril Lavigne in favour of one by Pink. Mr Carroll’s estate was appreciative, I’m sure.

Contributor

Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'