10 Movie Franchises That Just Kept Getting Worse

When The Matrix was first released in 1999, audiences had never seen anything like it; a melting pot of genre ideas that borrowed from religion, philosophy, anime, wuxia and cyberpunk backed by groundbreaking special effects, it quickly became one of the most influential, ripped-off and parodied movies ever made. Anticipation was impossibly high for the back-to-back sequels, which then promptly decided to disappear right up their own backsides.

Reloaded does boast some impressive action, especially the freeway chase that still holds up today (although the same cannot be said for the Playstation 2 cutscene that is the Burly Brawl), before the wheels start to come off when The Architect shows up at the end to confuse the hell out of everyone by talking utter sh*t for ten minutes.

Audience interest had plummeted by the time Revolutions came round just six months later, the movie's reliance on both portentous dialogue and a plot that isn't as smart as it thinks it is adding up to a hugely anticlimactic finale that earned over $300m less than its predecessor and sent a potentially-classic franchise out with a whimper.