1. Horror: Friday the 13^th Part 2

Friday the 13^th Part 2 is a fantastic introduction to the iconic Jason Vorhees. Through sparse screen appearances, a genuinely creepy look, Harry Manfredini’s amazing music, and characters talking about him like a figure of legend, Jason becomes a truly terrifying figure. The film also has some great kills (the two-person spear) and tense set-pieces (the Sheriff’s chase through the woods and the final act showdown). And it gives us one of the genre’s finest female characters in Ginny (Amy Steel). The original is a classic, but Part 2 made the franchise what it is today.

2. Comedy: Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey

If you’ve seen Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure watching this should be mandatory. Bogus Journey is incredibly imaginative and funny. The story includes concepts like Bill and Ted’s ghosts possessing people, having to play Twister with Death to return to Earth, Aliens living in the afterlife, and more. The sheer number of ideas and gags means that the movie never drags. The actors all have perfect comedic timing. The design work is incredible. And Bill and Ted are given more depth through the exploration of their fears. Bogus Journey is a riot and deserves to break free from its sibling’s shadow.

3. Superhero: Kick-Ass 2

While Kick-Ass 2 did lose something by having Hit Girl (played impeccably by Chloe Grace Moretz) no longer being a foul-mouthed youngster and Nic Cage not being involved it is still an entertaining comic book film. Each character has a satisfying and appropriate arc. The effective pitch-black humour returns, the murderous Hit Girl adapting to high school being the highlight. And some of the bloody action (particularly anything involving Olga Kurkulina’s Mother Russia) is really well done. Kick-Ass 2 is a good 15 rated antidote to an oversaturated market of 12a superhero sequels.

4. Sci-Fi: Alien 3

Alien and Aliens are very tough acts to follow. And while flawed it’s hard not to admire Alien 3. Rarely do we get a mainstream sequel as bleak as this. The prior film’s beloved characters are all killed. And Ripley (Sigourney Weaver in another masterful turn) is left to save a planet of prisoners who don’t value anything she has to say. While the plotting is sometimes confusing (not helped by some weird editing) Ripley’s story, the colourful supporting cast and the iconic imagery make Alien 3 deserving of appreciation on its own terms.

5. Children: Return to Oz

Despite being a sequel to one of the best movies of all time, made decades later and changing from a colourful musical with dark edges to a dark fantasy, Return to Oz somehow manages to be a great film. With a riveting story about trying to restore order to Oz, engaging new characters (Tik-Tok, Jack Pumpkinhead, and Gump), a terrifying ensemble of villains (The Nome King, Mombi, and The Wheelers), unbelievable effects, and Fairuza Balk doing good work as Dorothy this is a sequel with teeth. And it’s a perfect thematic follow-up to the original.

6. Action: Tomorrow Never Dies

Apart from the infamous Die Another Day Pierce Brosnan’s Bond sequels seem largely ignored. But Tomorrow Never Dies is a solid Bond film. The plot is somewhat plodding and after Goldeneye, TND can feel rather lacking. However, there are some great performances from Brosnan, Michelle Yeoh as Wei Lin, and Jonathan Pryce as news mogul Elliott Carver. Couple this with some fantastic action set pieces like the handcuffed motorbike chase scene, the rye humour, and a painfully relevant plot about news manipulation and you have a fun action film that more than makes up for its flaws.

Hopefully, this list encourages some of you to watch these movies. As they are worthy of more love than they initially received. And please tell us about your favourite underrated continuations so we can give more love to movies that need it.

Also Read: The New Frontier of the Western

The post Six Underrated Movie Sequels appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.

Spoiler Warning – Spoilers for Ocean’s 12, the Alien films and X-Men: First Class

The Worst Idea Ever

Ocean’s 11 is an enjoyably silly heist film, George Clooney is his charming self, Don Cheadle has a ridiculous Cockney accent and they even had filmmaking legend, Carl Reiner, in it. Ocean’s 12, however, did the worst thing any film has ever done. This is not worst in terms of morality but worst in terms of the worst idea anyone has ever had for a film. This takes some beating. After all, there have been nine films in the Fast & Furious franchise with two more planned, so that’s nine bad ideas in a row, with each idea getting exponentially worse. However, these films are just bad and ultimately that is a matter of opinion and I know that many people love these films. Ocean’s 12 though cannot be countenanced.

Ocean’s 12 starts in a typical heist film fashion with the team being brought together, in this one the person they stole from last time is out for revenge and demands they do a job for him. Fairly standard heist stuff. And then it goes off the rails. There is an artistic idea of “the willing suspension of disbelief” meaning that we put aside our parts of our critical thinking to simply enjoy a piece of art. Ocean’s 12 is determined to push this suspension to breaking point. One of the lynchpins of the heist is that Tess, played by Julia Roberts, looks quite like Julia Roberts, so she can pose as Julia Roberts. When watching Ocean’s 12, and indeed any film, we understand that these are actors portraying these characters. Whether that actor “exists” in the world of that film isn’t important as no one thinks that character looks like that actor, otherwise every film would constantly be full of people saying, “You know, you really look like Michael Caine.” So this insulting plan is put into action only for – and get this – Bruce Willis to show up! The real Bruce Willis who is of course friends with Julia Roberts! Oh, the shenanigans that ensue.

Perhaps the worst thing about this is the filmmakers seem convinced this is the Greatest Idea of All Time! Like the “why don’t they make restaurants that look like food” idea for architects, this has occurred to every filmmaker and quickly is dismissed. There are films that play with similar “meta” ideas in good ways – in A Cock and Bull Story Steve Coogan plays both Tristram Shandy and a version of himself making a film about Tristram Shandy. The Last Action Hero plays with many of the little inconsistencies that make films work, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Pleasantville, Wandavision all play with these ideas but the difference being that is the point of those films – that is what they’re exploring.

Ruining What Came Before

As I’ve written about before I am a huge fan of the film Aliens, and believe it does the near-impossible challenge of adding a young child to a film who not only isn’t annoying but improves the film. Ripley’s relationship with Newt makes that film. So why on Earth in Alien 3 is Newt killed at the start? And even worse – she is not killed in service to the story, she is killed in a sentence or two about problems with the ship. Imagine if in The Lost World: Jurassic Park we learned the children from the first film had died off-screen? Alien 3 famously had something of a development hell, with numerous scripts being written and tossed out but even so, it’s hard to imagine how they settled on this script.

Magneto might be the most interesting character in the X-men films and probably the one who would have the most interesting origins film. So naturally what was meant to be the Magneto Origins film became X-Men: First Class. This is a film in which a survivor of the Holocaust literally rips the fillings out of a person’s teeth and it was thought that was what needed was the hijinks of young people. X-Men: First Class is half of a great film – a powerful mutant seeking revenge across the world caught up in the tumultuous events of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The scene in Argentina where Magneto confronts Nazis is astounding (although the choice for the final line to be delivered in English is bizarre) and the decision made by both Russian and American governments to kill the mutants who just saved the world goes further to explain the Magneto we know from the earlier films. He is a man haunted not just be what happened to his family at the hands of Nazis but even when he saved the world humans still wanted to kill him. But this incredibly dark storyline is combined with something far more light-hearted and neither storyline is served well by this combination.

So a brief look at some of the worst ideas and decisions in films and I’m sure there will be a lot more in the future.

Also Read: From Blockbuster to Mockbuster: Big Films and Their Copies

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