We Don't Need Another Sequel: "28 Months Later"

11-12. "Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn (1987); Army Of Darkness (1992)
The original Evil Dead, released in 1981 and directed at a cost of about six bucks by a young Sam Raimi, didn't make much money, but it was widely beloved by a certain type of horror fan. Six years later, armed with a bigger budget but unsatisfied with the way the original had turned out, Raimi took another shot at it, and Dead By Dawn isn't so much a sequel to the original as it is a reboot-cum-remake. It plays fast and loose with the continuity, but that's nothing compared to what it does with the overall tone of the movie: What differentiates this gory-mayhem-in-a-remote-cabin-in-the-woods horror flick from the gory-mayhem-in-a-remote-cabin-in-the-woods horror flick that preceded it is its hellacious sense of humor. Chucking nightmare-fuel horror conventions in favor of slabs of slapstick, while maintaining all the gore and then some, Evil Dead 2 improves on its predecessor in every way by refusing to take itself seriously. And the all-goofy, joyously camp, endlessly quotable third sequel, Army Of Darkness, is just plain fun."

 

I hated Evil Dead 2 when it came out because I was such a fan of the genuinely horrifying (to me, at the time) original. But when I saw 2 on video a few years later, late at night with a big group of people, we all gasped and choked and laughed our proverbial butts off, and I began to see its bizarro genius. Now I cherish it as one of the horror/comedy greats of all time.

Incidentally, the above dates are wrong: Evil Dead came out in 1982, and Army of Darkness 1993.

 

13. Dawn Of The Dead (1978)

"It's now almost unthinkable that George Romero's zombie mythology ever wasn't a franchise, but back in the 1970s, his gripping, low-budget 1968 film Night Of The Living Dead was barely a memory in America. For one thing, the original film didn't leave much for him to work with?not only (spoiler alert for a 40-year-old movie!) were all the characters dead, but they were, in the words of the local sheriff, all messed-up. For another, Romero had no intention of making his zombie movies anything like an institution; he'd moved on to other varieties of horror, and had to be convinced by Dario Argento?one of several European admirers of Night Of The Living Dead?to return to the theme. Luckily, Argento's pep talk worked: Romero cranked out the script for Dawn Of The Dead in less than a month, ramped up the social commentary something fierce, rented out the Monroeville Mall, and made zombie history. Dawn shifted Night's small-stage shock-horror to global-apocalypse levels, and the living dead would never be the same again."

 

The zombie apocalypse touchstone film, and one of the best damn horror movies ever made. The character depth and social commentary are as striking as the geysers of vermillion blood.

 

I'm still not convinced this is truly a sequel. Yes its part of series of similarly named movies, but beyond the evolving Zombie Apocalypse there is little connective tissue between each installment. No continuing characters (unless you include recurring cameos) or story elements beyond the very broadest sense. Each story is individual and self-contained. I don't see what connects them beyond the titles really.

 

14. A Better Tomorrow II (1987)\

"Hong Kong action maestro John Woo first made a name for himself on the international scene with 1986's A Better Tomorrow, a conventional cop thriller made special by Woo's balletic, Sam Peckinpah-inspired gunplay and Chow Yun-fat's uncanny charisma in the lead role. Woo tried to top himself with A Better Tomorrow 2, and he did, though he reputedly hates the film, largely due to disagreements with producer Tsui Hark, who had a hand in the final product. (It was cut from its original three-hour run time down to 105 minutes.) In spite of the incoherent plot, Woo manages several memorable sequences, including a spectacularly bloody climactic shootout at a mansion that rivals Peter Jackson's Dead/Alive for most gore in a confined space."

 

15-16. Police Story 3: Supercop (1992); Drunken Master 2 (1994)

"As a general rule, Hong Kong action films have a higher rate of success with sequels than their American counterparts, mainly because they raise the stakes. Where American sequels have a "more of the same" attitude, Hong Kong films are about "more of the same, only more," which sets the bar that much higher as a franchise progresses. There's a reason why U.S. distributor Dimension Studios skipped right on past Jackie Chan's Police Story and Police Story 2 to release the spectacular Supercop in 1996: It's funnier than its predecessors, it has more action, and it features the magnificent Michelle Yeoh jumping a motorcycle onto a moving train."

 

I went thru a Jackie Chan phase back in the late 90's/early 2000's.. Of all the movies, i have to say "Supercop" is definitely the best.

Yeoh really adds alot to it.

 

Yeoh is terrific & she is probably the only woman who could push Chan to share the spotlight. Jackie is rather chauvinistic with his female co-stars and typically does not let them do stunts. Maggie Cheung, Anita Mui, & Brigitte Lin are terrific actresses yet none of them were able to persuade Jackie to be more than the damsel in distress. Hard to believe that Michelle took hadn't made a film in 5 years before this. This was her comeback film & put her back on top. She has been working consistently ever since.

 

17-19. Quatermass 2 (1957); Quatermass And The Pit (1958); Quatermas (The Quatermass Conclusion) (1979)

"British writer Nigel Kneale made one of TV's first forays into the chilling "cosmic horror" tales pioneered by H.P. Lovecraft with the 1955 miniseries The Quatermass Xperiment, the tale of a government rocket scientist who discovers that an alien capable of absorbing all life on Earth has secretly hitched a ride on a returning space probe. Though Kneale's story was fueled by the Lovecraftian notion that there may be some things so awful that humanity could never hope to defeat them, the intelligence and humanism of Prof. Bernard Quatermass (Brian Donlevy) wins the day, and the monster is destroyed before disaster can occur. Experiment was a huge popular success, and sequels were inevitable; they eventually included several more TV serials and film adaptations, but Kneale's smart, nuanced, often gloomy scripts kept the series from becoming stale. The series became hugely influential on the science-fiction field, lending ideas to Doctor Who, The Twilight Zone, The Thing, and Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, among others. The best of the sequels is probably Quatermass And The Pit, in which the professor uncovers a shocking secret about human evolution after the discovery of a spacecraft buried in the ground underneath London."

Seen some of these, courtesy TCM, and though they are bargain-basement in production, they have plenty of good, twisty ideas (especially "Quartermass and the Pit")

 

20. Before Sunset (2004)

"The ending of Richard Linklater's 1995 dusk-to-dawn romance Before Sunrise was bittersweet perfection, the ambiguous end to a magical evening in Vienna between two hyper-intelligent young people, an American (Ethan Hawke) and a Frenchwoman (Julie Delpy) who met on a train. Viewers were left with the tantalizing question: Did the lovers meet again at the same place one year later, as they promised, or was this the last they'd see of each other? It seems foolish to provide an answer, but the miraculous follow-up, Before Sunset, is somehow even better. In the nine years since they last met, Hawke and Delpy have changed?Hawke, for one, has a wife and child?but their brief reunion in Paris brings up old thoughts of what might have been and what might still be. Linklater again ends with a perfect question mark, but if he, Hawke, and Delpy want to pick up the thread another nine years from now, they won't be second-guessed."

 

21. The Godfather Part II (1974)

"Perennially ranked as the greatest sequel of all time?not to mention one of the greatest films of all time?The Godfather Part II isn't merely a worthy addition to Francis Ford Coppola's original: In many ways, it's the superior film. By juxtaposing Michael Corleone's struggles as the new head of the family with Vito Corleone's hardscrabble rise to power, the film enriches the original's theme of "the sins of the father are visited upon the son" and provides evidence of how Michael's pride guarantees his downfall, giving the entire saga a mournful undertone that elevates it from mere mobster movie to something approaching Greek tragedy. But beyond such critical bloviating, The Godfather Part II is also an endlessly entertaining film, full of memorable scenes, masterful performances, and layers that reward repeat viewings. It's the rare follow-up to something that's already damn near perfect, and it not only establishes a case for necessity, it actually makes its progenitor feel incomplete."

 

I agree with that pretty well all the way. Pacino's performance is even better, De Niro is a revelation as young Vito, Cazale finally gets to strut his stuff and the ending is even bleaker than the original.

 

"Night at the Museum 2"

The first one had a definite ending, and the second one feels superfluous in the extreme. Is Stiller going to do a tour of all the museums in the USA if this is a success?

 

From a blog:

Monday, June 1, 2009
Pluck You Too, Hollywood! The summer work stoppage/boycott

"Pluck You Too, Hollywood! The summer work stoppage/boycottTweet this!
After reading reviews of Terminator: Salvation, and seeing how for some reason Star Trek is outselling it, I had an epiphany. Why the hell am I slapping down a ten spot to see Hollywood screw up my beloved movie memories with endless sequels, remakes and re-imaginings? Now on the other hand, one of the best movies last year was a sequel (Dark Knight) but most of the time they miss the mark. Terminator is slowly going the Alien route, having killed off Sarah Connor in #3 and the changes made in the latest seem capricious.

The raves over Star Trek make it appealing, but I've never been a fan, so I can wait for cable. Why should I see Sylar Spock when I can go see Pixar's Up, something refreshing and new? Why should I go see Land of the Lost, even though it looks funny, when Year One with Jack Black and Michael Cera will probably be just as funny? I'm perpetuating this remake frenzy, and why? So I can complain about it? As I posted earlier, remakes are nothing new to Hollywood and some of the greatest movies ever are actually remakes, such as Ben-Hur and The Maltese Falcon. But each year we get more and more, and I'm tired of going to see mediocre ones like Get Smart, which was cute but unnecessary.

I think the final straw was the news that Bill Murray finally gave in and is going to join in for Ghostbusters 3 next year. After the abysmal sequel, why bother? The first movie is great, but should have been let alone. With so many other movies to see, I'm going to avoid as many re-'s as possible. We've got so much to look forward to without rehashes this year:

Up - Pixar has been on a huge roll and while Cars was a very profitable less memorable film, seems more in the grain of WALL-E and Ratatouille. Definitely going this week.

Public Enemies by Michael Mann, starring Johnny Depp is going to be huge. We haven't had a big old-timey gangster flick since what, Road to Perdition? And Mann's take on it will certainly be memorable. It's something we know well, like The Wolf Man - I was actually very eager to see Benicio del Toro play Larry Talbot, but I love the original so much that I don't need better make-up and lots of blood. I'll watch it, but probably on cable.

Year One - Ivan Reitman has been spotty lately, but Jack Black and Michael Cera as cavemen is such a great concept that I'll give it a try.

Bruno - After Borat, Sascha Baron Cohen can do no wrong. Okay, Ali G Indahouse wasn't great, but it was still funny. Bruno is set to

Shutter Island - Dennis LeHane's novel set in a 1950's mental asylum, directed by Scorsese. He's never boring, so this is a must see.

Sherlock Holmes - Okay, you might call this a reimagining, but the only recent Holmes movies I've seen are Young Sherlock Holmes, They Might Be Giants and Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother, and they were all reimaginings anyway. Plus Robert Downey Jr. and Guy Ritchie? C'mon.

Jennifer's Body - Diablo Cody's next one, described as "When a gorgeous cheerleader is possessed by a demon and starts feeding off the boys in a small Minnesota farming town, her "plain Jane" best friend must kill her, then escape from a correctional facility to go after the Satan-worshipping rock band responsible for the horrible transformation." How can you say no?

Drag Me to Hell - Sam Raimi's return to horror, about a bank worker who gets a gypsy curse. After the bailouts, we all need some catharsis!

Inglorious Basterds - If you haven't heard of Tarantino's new World War 2 flick you don't like movies. His movies are always good fun.

Moon - some real science fiction in the 2001 vein? Sign me up!

The Hurt Locker - thriller set in Iraq by the director of Point Break!

District 9 - "A sci-fi/action story set in a fictional world, where extraterrestrials have become refugees in South Africa." This could be awful or awesome.

Ponyo on the Cliff - Hayao Miyazaki's latest!

Extract - Mike Judge's latest office comedy. The traile

 

I will never understand the aversion to sequels and remakes. Yes 90% of them are crap...thats true of everything in film. 90% of original movies are crap and usually not terribly original either. As the article itself states the age when sequels and remakes were lesser versions of the original is behind us mostly (though not always). So I really don't understand the need to outright boycott them. No one is forcing you to see them, and if you want to see only original movies nothing is stopping you from doing that either. You have the choice, make it yourself. Its not complicated.

 

But the Dark Knight was like one of the best movies of last year.

 

I love sequels and re-makes, and nothing this single blogger says is going to persuade me otherwise. So long as the film is good, I don't understand what the objection is, exactly.

 

There are too many of them, and most are completely unnecessary.

 

I could say the same for many "original" films as well.

 

There's no reason for "Night at the Museum 2". The story came to a logical conclusion in the first one.

 

There is no reason for any film to exist apart from entertainment and enlightenment. A sequel serves the same function as an original. None is any more or less "necessary" than any other. So long as a film is well-made and entertaining, and perhaps provides some insight into the human condition, it has justified its own existence alongside whatever "original" it derived from.

 

And what sequel this season is going to comment on the human condition?

 

Sure there was...the first made money and it seemed reasonable for a second film to make money as well.

If you are speaking strictly about the necessity of the film, as Merlin_Ambrosius69 stated, no film is really necessary.

I don't see what sets "original" films apart from sequels that make them anymore necessary.