10 Wildly Unnecessary Movie Sequels That Were Awesome Anyway

Now it's officially come to an end, it's safe to say that the X-Men series was the roller-coaster of cinematic franchises. Coming out of the gate strong with the incredible X-Men and even better X2: X-Men United, it then took a rapid nose-dive with X-Men: The Last Stand, before leaving us all stuck upside down in a loop after the release of X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

So how did Fox plan to re-vitalise the franchise? They made a prequel. Now this may seem a bit of a cheat for this list, but the fact that they've gone backwards makes it appear even more unnecessary. Firstly, the history of failed prequels across studios already stacked the odds against it. And since we already how this is going to end, did we really need to see how everyone met each other and our favourite X-Men came to be?

Turns out yes, we did.

Matthew Vaughn manages to perfectly capture how close friends can find themselves on opposite sides of the same fight. Humanising every mutant and placing them in such a critical time period allowed for the drama and tension to build intensely, something many prequels fail to do. Throw in some stellar performances, excellent music, and a compelling villain, and this roller coaster train is back at the top of the hill.