10 Franchises That Peaked With The First Movie

The Matrix exploded out of nowhere to become the single most influential blockbuster in the industry around the turn of the 21st Century, with its signature wire-fu and leather trenchcoats the source of inspiration for a thousand pale imitators and almost as many parodies.

Unfortunately, the back-to-back sequels saw the franchise disappear almost entirely up its own a*se.

Whereas the original was fresh, exciting and inventively managed to balance its world-building and philosophical undertones against the jaw-dropping and wholly unique set-pieces, the follow-ups instead decided to double down on exposition and tedious monologuing, forgetting entirely what made The Matrix such a breath of fresh air in the first place.

The Wachowskis showed that they could still craft spectacular action in scenes like Reloaded's freeway chase and Revolutions' (intentional or not) Dragonball Z-inspired climax, but the pseudo-babble spouted by the likes of The Architect and The Merovignian saw the sequels frequently descend into tedium, with the end result being a series of standalone action sequences of varying quality tied together by reams of monotonous exposition.