15 Laziest Movie Sequels Of All Time

5. Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997)

20 years on, Speed remains one of the greatest action movies ever made. Brilliantly high-concept, the movie became one of the biggest hits of the year and earned over $350m against a $30m budget. Of course, that made a sequel a foregone conclusion. Taking the basic premise of the original and moving it onto a boat must have seemed like a good idea at the time, but almost everything about Speed 2 screams of a studio cash-in.

The first warning sign came when Keanu Reeves opted not to return, and was instead replaced by the incredibly bland Jason Patric. The lo-fi ingenuity of the original was replaced by a budget north of $100m, almost half of which was spent solely on the salaries of director Jan de Bont, star Sandra Bullock and the climactic set-piece. Then there was the inherent problem of having a movie with 'speed' in the title take place on a slow-moving cruise ship that was traveling at the terrifying speed of... 33 kilometers per hour.

The basic idea for the movie was reportedly inspired by a nightmare that the director had, which was ironically how people felt after watching this turgid sequel. Speed 2 harks back to the superior original via a couple of cameos and in-jokes, which just points out how badly the movie pales in comparison. It's a project that bears all of the hallmarks of a lazy sequel in that it believes that reusing the same premise in a different location with a bigger budget will yield similar results. Well, it didn't.