A-List: Worst Sequels Ever
By Josh Spiegel
July 29, 2010
Blues Brothers 2000
If ever there was a movie that did not need to be made, it’s Blues Brothers 2000. Most sequels, granted, are unnecessary; the stories usually are complete by the end of the first film, but sometimes there are outliers. Blues Brothers 2000 is not one of those outliers. What could stop a sequel to The Blues Brothers from getting made? Well, the gap in time between the two films is 18 years. One of the lead actors had passed away over a decade ago. The first film was successful, but obviously not so much as to have audiences begging for a return to the characters. Finally, though the characters were originally from Saturday Night Live, the audiences who watched the show in the late-1990s weren’t nearly the types to immediately know who Jake and Elwood Blues were. So that a sequel was made is shocking. That it sucks is unsurprising.
John Landis and Dan Aykroyd returned for Blues Brothers 2000. In place of the late John Belushi, John Goodman took the reins as Mighty Mack, a bartender with a gifted voice. Though Goodman isn’t half-bad as a singer, he’s just not John Belushi. He’s a great actor, but….why would anyone even want to replace Jake Blues? The movie was made with good intentions, which is usually what makes a bad movie even worse. The musical performances, from greats such as Aretha Franklin, James Brown, B.B. King, and Bo Diddley, are a lot of fun, but they’re also completely separate from the movie, which also adds a kid Blues Brother into the mix. There are insane car chases, deadpan humor, silly cameos, and everything else that made The Blues Brothers a comedy classic. But there’s no feeling involved, aside from that of wanting to make money.
Scary Movie 2
These days, a lot of ire is appropriately aimed at Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer for the horrors they’ve unleashed upon America, including Date Movie, Epic Movie, and Meet the Spartans. These are among the worst studio films ever created, but they got their start with Scary Movie, a 2000 comedy hit that mercilessly mocked horror movies. What happened after Scary Movie is one of the worst movies ever made, let alone of the worst sequels ever. Scary Movie 2 combines the worst elements of its predecessor with tons of motifs that would pop up in the Friedberg/Seltzer films: quickly dated humor, drawn-out running gags, and “celebrity” cameos. Scary Movie 2 features James Woods, David Cross, Chris Elliott, and Andy Richter; the movie still manages to be terrible.
A good sign of a bad movie is when it feels like it has to work to get to the finish line. When a movie is 83 minutes long, including the credits, it shouldn’t feel twice as long. But all the parodies - including an interminable parody of a flashy sports commercial - dilute whatever humor there might have been. What’s more, Scary Movie 2 came less than a year after its predecessor. What horror-movie tropes could there still be to parody? Sure, there’s the potential for making fun of horror-movie sequels, but this story, mainly set in a haunted house, goes nowhere. When you waste the talents of the people I mentioned above - Cross gets to sit in a wheelchair and make dumb faces - it’s painful. When you squander goodwill within a year, it’s embarrassing.
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