Sequels are an epidemic sweeping through Hollywood. The outcome of a sequel usually does one of three things: It makes you hate a classic, turns a terrible movie into a terrible series, or it makes you glad you went to see it. More often than not, sequels are stacked against the odds from the start and usually are not as good as the original.
"Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2" just looks terrible, and sent Kevin James's career further down the rabbit hole. The original was rated a 33 percent on Rotten Tomatoes; I haven’t seen the sequel, but based on its 6 percent rating on IMDB and bad reviews (" 'Paul Blart 2' is not about the everyman hero, it’s about the fat slob working class and how we should laugh at them and not with them," for example), I won’t be seeing it.
The Indiana Jones reboot was a disappointment to a great series. So was the prequel to Star Wars. Truly good revamps are unique and usually have a fresh face to them.
"Mad Max: Fury Road" is a good example of this. It was amazing, and it was different. It gave a completely different story and different leading character.
The James Bond reboot with Daniel Craig was great, as well. It gave a dark and more authentic look to a character who used to drive an invisible car and shoot lasers. Movies like these have a built-in audience with a vested interest; people are going to see them, and they keep working.
The best examples of these kinds of movies are superhero movies. Everyone knows the back-story and knows what they are getting when they go to the movie. Yes, there are a lot of examples of movie series that aren’t based on comic books, like "The Godfather," but I know more about comic book movies, so I’m going to discuss them.
Toby Maguire’s "Spider Man" spanned from 2002-2007 and was remade in 2012 with Andrew Garfield. Jon Watts will be playing Spider Man in "Captain America: Civil War," 2016. There's also going to be another Spider Man reboot in 2017. I know I’m on an angry rant here, but bear with me: I love Spider Man, but these movies all fall victim to a classic mistake. They focus on retelling an origin story that we already know, (Spider Man is bitten by a spider, duh).
When half a movie is spent showing how a superhero got his or her powers, it either makes the movie too long without the appropriate amount of action or it's boring to watch. Like when Spider Man talks to Aunt May about swimming to islands with Uncle Ben (For the record, "Spider Man 2" with Doc Oc was fantastic). There is nothing wrong with doing another Spider Man movie, because there are hundreds of different story lines that are all fantastic, but what can hurt the franchise is spending too much time on the origin story.
Audiences are smart: When "Star Wars" came out, we didn’t need to have each character's backstory and motivation explained to us. Bad guy versus good guy; they are having a conflict. It can be argued that not knowing each character's motivation helps a story; it makes it more engaging and we can guess at motivations, wondering how the situation came to be. Darth Vader telling Luke Skywalker that he is his father is a plot twist that can only come out of this type of situation, and it is an iconic scene.
Going forward, the next big DC Comic book movie hitting the big screen is "Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice." From the trailer, it looks great. Ben Affleck is set to play an older, established Batman, and there's a familiar character in Superman with a huge showdown that will dominate the screen in 2016.
What drives me insane is that we see Batman’s parents dying. AGAIN. How many times do we have to watch the same familiar scene? We get it, his parents were shot and that's why he became Batman. I don’t need to see it in every Batman movie. What I need to see is Batman pummel Superman.
Good sequels are few and far between – but, when done properly, they can be better than the original. What a good sequel can provide is further character development, in turn creating a deeper connection with the audience. Sadly, however, in today's movie climate it's more than likely that sequels will continue to be the overwhelmingly underdeveloped money-grabs that we have become so accustomed to.
