The Drinker's Top 5 Underrated Sequels

now it might surprise you to learn this but Hollywood can be a rather cautious and unimaginative place at times and rather than risk developing new stories and characters they generally prefer to milk existing ones for all their worth hence the sequel and good Lord do they love their sequels nowadays I mean take a look at the release slate for 2024 you could count the number of original IPS on the fingers of a really in competent Yakuza member the funny thing is although we tend to think of them as more of a modern phenomenon they've been around almost as long as Cinema itself fall of a nation was the first generally recognized movie sequel and that came out way back in 1916 which makes it almost as old as your average US presidential candidate at this point but sequels didn't really become standard procedure until the 1970s when we were suddenly bombarded with sequels to films like The Godfather The French Connection and Jaws to name just a few since then we've had literally hundreds of the things some good some bad and some uh but the thing I want to talk about here are the sequels that didn't get the respect or attention they deserved first time around and might just have earned their own little Redemption arcs so strap in as I take you through the drinker's top five underrated sequels number five Die Hard 2 you don't need me to tell you that die hard was one of the finest action movies ever made and it's now a regular part of my Christmas Eve tradition well that and drinking Bailey until I look like I'm reenacting the bishop scene from Aliens anyway wa a sequel went into production almost right away and by 1990 it was ready for release This Time with Finn director renie Harland at the helm Die Hard 2 picks up a year or so after the events of the first film with John mlan waiting at Dallas airport for his wife's plane to land unfortunately another plane is also on the way this one carrying a captured South American drug lord being extradited to America to stand trial before you can say plot convenience a disgraced us Colonel and his team of Special Forces soldiers have taken control of the airport and shut down all the runways stranding hundreds of people in the air overheads if anyone gets in their way they'll start crashing planes I think it's fair to say that Die Hard 2 was never going to match the novelty and impact of the original and perhaps its biggest shortcoming is that it's just a bit generic in comparison William Sadler's Colonel Stewart is nowhere near as memorable a villain as Hans Gruber the airport setting doesn't offer up as many interesting possibilities as nakatomi Tower and it definitely suffers from the problem of relying on bigger Stakes rather than better storytelling we're not just threatening hostages now we're crashing entire airliners mlan is also much more of a traditional Action Hero this time around instead of an every man caught up in a situation he absolutely isn't prepared for and although plenty of stuff goes boom the action scenes don't have quite the same energy and visceral impact as the first movie and for the life of me I'll never understand how grenades now take like 30 seconds to detonate all that being said though it's definitely a fun roller coaster ride of an action movie in its own right with some genuinely impressive effects work and one that I never feel guilty about rewatching it might not reach the same Heights as die hard but to be fair that is a pretty [ __ ] high Bar number four Rocky 2 yeah I know people like to [ __ ] on this movie as a weak and predictable follow-up to the original but just hear me out on this one the phenomenal success of the first Rocky immediately produced demand for a sequel Sylvester Stallone was Keen to Branch out into other roles but when his next two movies flopped he returned to Rocky on the condition that he got to direct at this time around the movie sees rcky attempt to move on from boxing after his narrow defeat to Apollo Creed but when his Overnight Celebrity Status begins to wne and the money runs out he's reluctantly forced to accept a rematch with the champ coming hot on the heels of one of the most beloved movies of all time Rocky 2 was always going to have an uphill battle and it's not difficult to see why it wasn't such a big hit with critics structurally the plot is basically just a rehash of the first movie the final fight is bigger and more bombastic and if you take a shot every time Rocky takes a Haymaker to the face you'll be on your way to hospital by the end of the first rounds but look a little closer and you begin to appreciate the little details and the extra thought that make this film more than just a lazy cash grab and that maybe it's got more to say than you realize as much as the first movie was about a man catapulted into Fame and stardom with a million to one opportunity this film's very much about what happens to him afterwards just like so many other people who become overnight celebrities he quickly blows all of his prize money with Reckless spending and when all those much wanted business opportunities and sponsorships lead nowhere he eventually finds himself right back where he was it's an interesting observation on what happens once your 15 minutes of fame are up and it's a very real reflection of where Stallone was at in his own career the film also offers a much better insight into Apollo as an antagonist in the first movie there wasn't a whole lot you could say about him he was just a Brash charismatic Champion flush with his own success and very much overconfident here though he's way more focused and determined his pride and reputation damaged by his failure to knock Rocky out and it's interesting watching him pass up chances to move on or take an easy points Victory because he just can't seem to let it go and I'll be honest I always felt just a little bit sorry for him in that final round clearly a film like this was never going to recapture the Timeless magic of the original but as a solid well- constructed sequel that has a lot more to say than you might think it holds up surprisingly well it's the closest in tone look and feel to the original movie before the series devolved into [ __ ] cartoons and if you're willing to judge it on its own merits rather than in comparison to its predecessor I think there's some decent enjoyment to be had with Rocky 2 number three 20110 the year we make contact now ask any pretentious film critic and they'll probably list 2001 of Space Odyssey as one of their greatest movies of all time and fair enough it's a science fiction Masterpiece made by one of the most talented and unique directors in the history of Western Cinema 2001 really does cast a long Shadow so much so that it tends to blow out the sequel that was released released in 1984 and that's a real shame because 2010 is actually a [ __ ] great sci-fi movie in its own right it tells the story of a joint American Soviet expedition to recover the discovery from the first film and investigate the mysterious monolith orbit in Jupiter and it actually does a pretty good job of tying up some of the Loose Ends from its predecessor while leaving enough questions unanswered that the audience is still allowed to draw their own conclusions from it the creeping paranoia the existential dread the Deep philosophical questions and the painfully slow pace of Kubrick's work are less overwhelming here the characters are much more grounded and human there's a lot of references to the Cold War tension that was prevalent at the time and the ultimate message of peace and cooperation might come across as slightly hacked compared to the Deep mystery of 2001 but overall I think it's a very underrated sequel that actually accomplishes a lot more than people give it credit for the cast is excellent the special effects are solid and the finale provides a poignant Redemption Arc for one of the most memorable villains of all time and I think that maybe just maybe this film deserves a bit more love than it gets number two Ghostbusters 2 never have I seen a movie more unfairly shat on than Ghostbusters 2 the infamously unpopular sequel to the 1984 classic a film that most of the casts were reluctant to make in the first place that Bill Murray famously disowned after it was released and whose failure pretty much killed the prospect of further Ghostbusters movies well until the bad times began and I'll be honest I never quite understood the hatred that it got yeah it definitely stuck way too closely to the structure and formula of the first movie playing it very safe and cautious when they probably should have been bold and inventive yeah vgo the Carpathian was a pretty forgettable villain compared to goer and yeah given everything that happened at the end of the first movie it's pretty [ __ ] ridiculous that the Ghostbusters aren't International celebrities by this point but whatever it's a movie that still provides plenty of entertainment on its own terms a lot of the jokes are way funnier and better constructed than in modern sequels like afterlife and whatever the problems and struggles behind the scenes the cast are still on top form throughout [ __ ] man even Bill Murray looks like he actually wants to be there and there's a few neat little gags about how much time has passed since the first movie the point I'm making is that even if it's a slightly unimaginative and safe sequel it still feels like a Ghostbusters movie in a way that afterlife for the 2016 version never did the tone the humor the performances and the energy are still there even if they're not quite as fresh as they were before it's a film I've got plenty of happy memories watching on TV as a kid and I think ultimately its biggest problem is that it had the almost impossible challenge of following up one of the best comedies of the 1980s but considering what came after it I don't know man I think it'll be remembered a lot more fondly as time passes number one Predator 2 the original Predator is about as close as you can get to a perfect action movie and I've waxed lyrical about it plenty of times before so I'm not going to go down that same road again the point though is that like every other successful movie from the 1980s a sequel was almost inevitable and that sequel came in the form of 1990s Predator 2 and as much as Ghostbusters 2 was criticized for being kind of safe and formulaic Predator 2 went down a very different path gone was the atmospheric jungle backdrop gone were the 1980s action heroes gone was the survival and the claustrophobia and the isolation instead we find ourselves in Los Angeles in the near future pitched into a full-scale war between rival drug gangs and our protagonist is now a middle-aged police detective who finds himself hunting for a mysterious new killer that leaves a trail of mutilated bodies in his wake and while all this is going on a shadowy government task force lurks in the backgrounds it sounds like a movie that never should have worked but what's impressive is how effectively Predator 2 makes its new cast and location function while keeping the core elements of the Predator franchise alive and well this Predator has new weapons and abilities that it uses very effectively in combat the script fleshes out its Origins and purpose a little more clearly and adds a new air of intrigue without Jumping the Shark there's some wonderfully gory action sequences especially the subway shootout that still manages to creep me out even today the characters are pretty well drawn likable and played by capable actors especially Danny Glover who turns in a great performance as a world weary detective whose mission becomes very personal as his own friends fall victim to the predator and I like the fact that the government is very much aware of the Predator exists now and is actively working to counter its technology so they can steal it for themselves it's logical follow on from the events of the first movie and it's a shame we never got a third film that fleshed this out even more all that being said there's definitely shortcomings Arnold's absence leaves a big hole in the movie there's none of the subtle transition to different genres that made the original script so [ __ ] compelling and if I'm honest the final battle drags on way too long but overall I think it's a great fun action horror movie that stands well on its own merits and probably the only truly good Predator sequel that I've seen and for that reason I hold it all off as the most underrated and underappreciated sequel of all time and there you have it the Drinker list of the most underrated sequels ever I don't imagine you'll agree with me on everything here but that's what makes these movies so endlessly fascinating the opportunity to counter and debate and offer up your own alternative suggestions and I'm sure you have plenty of your own anyway that's all I've got for today go away now

Channel: The Critical Drinker

Views: 787,178

Keywords: critical drinker, review, funny, best, disney, kathleen kennedy, feminism, feminist, ghostbusters

Id: 8lOR2tAKZaA

Length: 11min 24sec (684 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 17 2024