10 Most Shockingly Improved Movie Sequels

It is admittedly easier to improve upon the previous film when the bar is in Hell, as it always has been for the Universal Soldier franchise.

The original Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren-starring 1992 action flick was largely dismissed as a Terminator knock-off upon release, yet performed well enough at the box office to become a card-carrying franchise in its own right.

The three immediate sequels were all near-universally panned by critics, with Universal Soldier: The Return flat-out flopping and causing the IP to be put on ice for over a decade. But in 2010, a fifth film was released, Universal Soldier: Regeneration, which ignored all the other sequels and acted as direct follow-up to the original movie.

Though few critics bothered to review it, and it was produced for a mere $9 million - less than half of what the original cost - the fan consensus is that Regeneration was a major return to form for a franchise that never had much form to begin with. Bringing Van-Damme and Lundgren back didn't hurt, nor the directorial skill of John Hyams, who has since gone on to produce quality genre films such as Alone and Sick.

For what appeared on paper to be a laughably desperate attempt to keep a dead franchise going, Regeneration is packed with gut-wrenching action and feels anything but half-assed. The team also miraculously pulled it off again with 2012's similarly received follow-up Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning.