10 Movie Sequels That No One Ever Asked For
The success of a new movie often leads to ideas for the quick formulation of a sequel. This isn’t always a good thing, as some movies are better left as one standalone piece. If audiences aren’t won over by a follow-up, the reputation of that franchise can even take an irreparable hit.
Here’s what people thought about these 10 sequels — from 1 star to 10, even if most didn’t make it past 6.
1. The Matrix (1999) & The Matrix Resurrections (2021)
3/10 ⭐ “Laughingly bad. Filled with loads of ‘Remember this?’ flashbacks and obnoxious slow-mo and blur. Dull and confusing story, dumb dialogue, and messy action sequences you won’t remember at all.” © AdrenalinDragon / IMDb
2/10 ⭐ “If the SyFy channel made a Matrix series it would look like this. So much about this is way off. The editing and pacing. Shot composition. Fight scenes. Lighting... All of it looks cheap and nasty and that’s just the first 10 mins.” © GypsyJJJ / IMDb
2. Mean Girls (2004) & Mean Girls 2 (2011)
1/10 ⭐ “I really wish I could give fewer stars. This film literally has nothing to do with the original, and it is so unfunny with awful characters and an even worse plot. It doesn’t even get a grade, it’s that bad.” © mrashtastic89 / IMDb
2/10 ⭐ “Mean Girls is one of my all-time favorite movies. I completely expected Mean Girls 2 to be worse than Mean Girls, I didn’t really have that high expectations for it. I’m not picky when it comes to films, but I can honestly say this was one of the worst films I have ever seen.” © haichgee / IMDb
1/10 ⭐ “Everything in this movie is a downgrade. The music is a downgrade from Grease. The story is a downgrade from Grease. The motorcycles are a downgrade from those sweet cars they were driving around in. Frenchy is barely in it.” © Ragnarok-5 / IMDb
2/10 ⭐ “Grease 2, the sequel nobody asked for, actually lures you in with a sense of familiarity. There’s a good opening number and lots of recognizable faces from the original film. But then it goes downhill. The plot is a basic retread of the original, only with weaker characters.” © studioAT / IMDb
4. The Mask (1994) & Son of the Mask (2005)
Original:
10/10 ⭐ “Carrey plays unlucky bank clerk Stanley Ipkiss, who one night finds an ancient mask. When he puts it on, he turns into sort of a cartoon character. The really great thing about the movie is that they just turn Carrey loose. Anything that you can imagine him doing, he does here. All in all, Jim Carrey’s humor will never get old. He may have given his all-time funniest performance.” © lee_eisenberg / IMDb
Sequel:
1/10 ⭐ “Son of the Mask is one of those sequels that simply shouldn’t have happened and now after watching I can claim it’s a contender for the worst one of the bunch. Full of dire CGI, painfully unfunny ‘comedy,’ puerile writing, and legitimately no redeeming features.” © Platypuschow / IMDb
2/10 ⭐ “The direction is poor. It has no comic sense. The wacky mask sequences fall flat. What’s worse is that they can’t even approximate the classic Looney Tunes / MGM cartoons they copy. What annoys me is that this isn’t so bad it’s good, it’s just bad.” © dbborroughs / IMDb
1/10 ⭐ “This film rehashes most of the storyline from the first film. Once again on Amity Island, a great white shark comes to the island. Chief Brody again is paranoid and the mayor doesn’t believe or doesn’t want to believe him, because he is only worried about tourism.” © the_jp_freak / IMDb
2/10 ⭐ “This seems not like a ’part 2,’ but instead a retread of the original. No one seems impacted by the incident of ’part 1.’ And much of the dialogue is truly moronic, all in service to the need to make a shark attack compelling.” © stevechristian-02520 / IMDb
6. Big Momma’s House (2000) & Big Momma’s House 2 (2006)
2/10 ⭐ “One of the film’s flaws is its confusion about what it is. It’s about Martin Lawrence’s character, FBI agent Malcolm Turner, throwin’ on the old Big Momma costume to go undercover. His mission is to investigate a woman. But the film lags with sappiness that, when it gets to the very serious side, is confusing and just plain lame.” © vip_ebriega / IMDb
3/10 ⭐ “While the original movie was nothing great, it was enjoyable enough. This sequel makes the mistakes the previous movies made, but instead of making them better, this movie amplifies them. The only things that stop it from being a complete abomination are the locations, soundtrack, and the performance of Martin Lawrence, which is quite good.” © TheLittleSongBird / IMDb
7. The Karate Kid (1984) & The Next Karate Kid (1994)
2/10 ⭐ “I have seen this before. Pat Moriata is not bad, but it doesn’t seem to help that all the actors feel off. Even the main lead. The first was great, the second was ok, and the remake was not bad. This I would skip.” © princessstrickland21 / IMDb
1/10 ⭐ “Better than the third film, but this movie was still awful to continue the franchise. This movie is supposed to be a sports film like the first 2 films. This was more a boring teenage drama, why would I want to watch a teenage girl wrecking her life and hating everyone around her?” © NightmareOnElmStreetFan / IMDb
8. Home Alone (1990) & Home Alone 3 (1997)
1/10 ⭐ “This film offers nothing new or different than the previous films did, and there really is not the warm, holiday feeling or subplots that the other 2 films had. It’s more of a pure comedy, but it did not succeed in making me laugh as the characters really did not do it for me.” © rebeljenn / IMDb
2/10 ⭐ “This sequel isn’t likable at all, it’s not because of a change in the protagonist, it’s rather because of the way the characters are written, and the way the traps are shown. The kid is unnecessarily annoying and annoyingly too smart for his age or even type. He is cheeky and nothing shows he’s a nerdy electronics engineer throughout the plot.” © acajcarvalho / IMDb
4/10 ⭐ “When I go to see a Pixar movie I expect to be blown away. Cars 2 simply did not. There were many problems with Cars 2, mainly that the story strength just was not there. Yes, it did have some funny moments but they were few and far between.” © tomduerr584 / IMDb
1/10 ⭐ “McQueen has been practically relegated to minor character status here (one wonders why Owen Wilson even bothered showing up). Occasional glimmers of clever humor are all but eclipsed by a rickety plot that can’t bear the weight of all it’s trying to accomplish.” © hobokencommuter / IMDb
10. Zoolander (2001) & Zoolander 2 (2016)
2/10 ⭐ “Zoolander 2 tried too hard to be comedic. In fact, there are a lot of cameos of famous celebrities/artists sprinkled throughout the film that tried to add humor but just ultimately failed. It is outlandish to the point that most of these characters come off as stupid.” © robbieclaravall / IMDb
3/10 ⭐ “Zoolander was a parody of the fashion industry. It was original, well-written, packed with jokes and witty moments, and flowed brilliantly from one scene to the next. Whilst things were often a bit silly, it always stayed within the bounds of reason which really gave the comedy some grounding. Zoolander 2 is more like a parody of Zoolander. The jokes that were iconic in the original are recycled repeatedly. Derek’s signature look is now done by everybody. The settings, story, or events rarely make any sense.” © charliegeeza / IMDb
Do you agree with our picks? What movie made you hate sequels? Share your thoughts in the comments and see what people think 😉