10 Movie Sequels That'll Definitely Make You Angry
These movie sequels insult our hearts and minds almost as much as they insult their predecessors.
Most movie sequels are unnecessary, if not outright unwanted; yet, history shows that they can justify their creation and please fans of their respective franchise. Examples like The Empire Strike Back, The Godfather Part II, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, 28 Weeks Later, Aliens, The Dark Knight, and The Bride of Frankenstein certainly measure up to – if not surpass – their precursors.
Similarly, the majority of underwhelming continuations are innocuous and easily forgettable, doing almost no damage to the legacy of their forerunners or our love for those initial cinematic journeys. They can even be enjoyably nonsensical and over-the-top too, working their way into our hearts for brand new reasons (such as Batman & Robin and the two Matrix follow-ups ).
The ten entries on this list fall into neither of those categories. Instead, they do things that, well, spit in the face of the greatness that precedes them, be it by undoing cherished character and/or plot developments, having embarrassingly poor quality, or simply carrying on a narrative that no one asked for. To be fair, not all of these picks are awful – at least a couple are decent, if not good – but they nonetheless do something that'll make viewers' blood boil.
10. American Psycho II: All American Girl
Love them or hate them, it’s hard to deny that Bret Easton Ellis' 1991 novel American Psycho, as well as Mary Harron's faithful but toned down 2000 cinematic adaption, were about more than extreme violence.
Rather, their vulgar and excessive voyages into the life of murderous playboy Patrick Bateman were meant as a satirical dissection of the triviality, misogyny, jealousy, and ultimate emptiness of 1980s American yuppie culture. Above all else, the narratives' main ambiguity – whether or not Bateman actually commits the torture and murders – were important aspects of their social commentary.
Flash-forward to 2002’s American Psycho II: All American Girl, a movie that (like many terrible sequels) wasn’t initially meant to be a follow-up at all. At the last minute, however, the creators decided to connect its cliché tale (about a college student killing off classmates and professors) to Harron’s film by making said student – Mila Kunis’ Rachael Newman – a surviving victim of Bateman’s spree.
In doing so, they retroactively remove the original’s purposeful vagueness in favour of making a quick buck with a shoddily executed travesty. Unsurprisingly, Ellis and Kunis have denounced it in subsequent years. At least it has some campy William Shatner fun, though, right?