10 Movie Sequels Way Better Than They Had Any Right To Be

10. U.S. Marshals

1993's The Fugitive is one of my favourite movies of all time. A hallowed Dad Movie classic, Andrew Davis' adaptation of the iconic 1960s TV series brought together Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones for a cat-and-mouse mystery thriller all about a doctor wrongfully accused of his wife's murder. Sleek, stylish, and stupidly efficient, Davis' film rightly earned Jones an Oscar at the 67th Academy Awards for his portrayal of Deputy Marshal Samuel Gerard, the man on Ford's tail who eventually comes to realise the "why" of Richard Kimble's story is just as important as how it ends.

Even with Ford in sensational form as Kimble, Jones' Gerard was the easy highlight of The Fugitive. Flanked by supporting players like Joe Pantoliano as Cosmo Renfro, Gerard commanded the screen with machine-like authority, complemented by moments of levity between himself and the rest of his squad. This aspect of The Fugitive is more subtly brilliant than it arguably gets credit for; we spend almost as much time with Gerard as we do Kimble, and while the focus is on Ford and Jones, the latter has the benefit of a supporting ensemble who - despite brief screentime - impart a lived-in sensibility to the proceedings, something you could feasibly see expanded upon in another film.

That doesn't stop the fact that when that other film came, it was still quite unusual. Five years after the premiere of The Fugitive, Warner Bros. released U.S. Marshals, directed by Stuart Baird and featuring Jones as Gerard on the hunt for another fugitive.

In premise alone, U.S. Marshals screams redundancy. Gerard is on the hunt for another innocent-seeming man on the run, only this time we've traded the vulnerable Ford for action regular Wesley Snipes. It even functions similarly to The Fugitive in structure, with the film including an explosive escape sequence, as well as a coming-together moment where Gerard meets his prey at the climax of an initial chase.

But, despite that premise seeming quite eye-rolly at a glance, U.S. Marshals is a really good sequel. It doesn't approach the same level of craft as Davis' classic, but Baird and writer John Pogue tap into the same well and emerge with a surprisingly thrilling - if not slightly unambitious - piece of cinema. Jones is in fine form as Gerard, balancing levity while drawing greater emotional depth opposite Pantoliano, and also benefits from the addition of Robert Downey Jr. as a DSS agent on the hunt for the same man. It probably shouldn't work, but with Jones' energy to draw from, U.S. Marshals ends up being a success.