My Top 85 Favorite 2nd Chapter Sequels
Faraway, So Close! is the sequel to the successful Wings Of Desire. I still haven't decided whether I like this movie or not. Whenever I my mind reflects on it, sometimes I find myself liking it as a follow-up film that tries to make it's own mark, distinct from the original. Other times, I find it an uneven plot that does a poor job of continuing the concepts that were introduced in Wings.
So until I view this again in order to finally make up my mind, I'm including it on this list. For the time being, it'll help round out this list to an even eighty-five. Not to mention that with the straddling opinion that I have for this German esoteric fantasy film, I think it's worth recommending just to hear what other afficiandos might think of it.
 The main reason for all of tthe extreme title changes was because the final script for this saga of battling behemoth-sized brothers is just a big ol' mess. The already wacky- ass story of Sanda and Gaira is a continuity that is barely stitched together with it's predecessor, Frankie Conquers the World. This barely there second chapter's premise is worsened by the fact that it just plain gets totally lost in translation once it reaches the shores of it's more English speaking audiences.
Which probably make anyone reading this wonder why it's featured on this of favorite second chapter cinema. And the explanation is simple. Guilty pleasure.
I grew up during the 70's, and as a kid who watched a lot television fell in love with Japanese kaiju flick that were continually on the roster of many of those creature feature type of shows that used to run quite often on local channels.Â
The overall weird wackiness of these types of movies of massive monsters of madness were almost the television equivalent of the monster comics that were produced by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby throughout the 50's and 60's. And those were pretty crazy too, altho, I'll admit, the kaiju equivalents did take the insanity of their premise to the next level. And this particular Frankenstein franchise offshoot was a pretty good example of that.
 Now, of course, this type of motion picture entertainment is not for everyone. Only those few of us born with a particularly unrefined taste for Kaiju style kamp can undertsand the khaos and konvoluted kraziness of these krusading kreature kombatants and the giant rubbery foot-shape imprint they can leave on our kollective konscousness.
 This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse is the second chapter in the trilogy about a character named Coffin Joe. He is a caretaker with a taste for murder and on a quest to find the "perfect woman" to help him sire what he deems as immortal prodigy. Kidnapping a group of females and putting them through a series of "fear" tests, he hopes that it will filter out the ideal woman of his dreams. An example of one of these tests includes filling a room where the potential future mamas are sleeping with tarantulas. The one who screams and cries the least will be ruled as the "winner", while the rest of 'em are left to fend for themselves against a hungry horde of Coffin Joe's slithering pets.
 It may not exactly the most be the romantic manner of scoring a spouse, but it does set up for an interesting story on the day when the son asks his father exactly just how daddy met mommy.
The first of these butt kicking femmes is Foxy Brown. In her first movie, she was named Coffy, but for whatever reason, the producers wanted to separate this film from that one, despite that the only differences between the two is the name and the fact that Coffy/Foxy dresses a little more "stylish" in this one.
But whatever you wanna call her, she's still played by Pam Grier, she's still hot and she still got her gun pointed where it counts.
Here she returns, but with her primary goal of vengeance already satiated from the original movie, she then sets her mind and her katana (although through circumstances not of her choosing) towards the political realm of espionage.
And as we all know, there's more than enough blood in that arena to quench the thirst of any modern-day warrior's (male or female) sword.
While Rob Zombies' creation of Captain Spaulding's kith and kin, in my opinion, doesn't quite match up to the legendary status of TCM, it's was still a worthy effort to the genre.
Even though, this type of straight for the jugular scare-fare usually isn't my cup of tea (or in this case, my "slice of milk"), Rejects succeeds as a dark ditty of deviltry about a family of hellbent hillbillies that makes even Lucifer hisself go "Damn....! These ratchety-ass rednecks are just plain downright evil.....!"
Pennywise, the multiformed enitity of evil eternal has returned and even though the children he antagonized in Chapter One are now all grown up, his hunger for their childhood fears is as strong and as insatiable as ever.
It: Chapter Two got alotta flack from both fans and critics alike for not being "as good" or "as scary" as chapter one. But, I have to be honest here, I really enjoyed it, quite a lot. I don't understand the basis for the criticisms "It" got since the story of this film adaptation stays pretty true to what what Stephen King penned onto paper (with the obvious editing down that is a standard requirement whenever a story goes through the process of being converting from a novel to a movie). And when you pay attention to what King wrote in the book, the cosmic angle of "It's" nature, it moved closer to fantasy science fiction with an element of horrot than it did to being a tale that was just a pure horror story. If the writers and producers of the movie wanted to honor the story in the book, this movie is pretty close to what had to be portrayed to get that result. And it also required the type of elaborate special effects that were needed to bring all the elements of "It" to life. I know this is just horror fan's opinion, but if that diminishes the level of scare in favor of the seeing as much as possible King's ideas for an immortal god of fear come to fruition on the big screen, then I'm fine with "It".
  As was predicted, Jurassic Park was a massive success throughout the globe, and thus, a sequel was pretty much guaranteed. Maybe a bit too much of a guarantee. Because, while it was obvious that Steven had a vision for the first chapter about a prehistoric park for the public, it seemed like this follow up was relying more on firmly established formula than it was on any kind of creative inspiration.
  Thatâs not to say that The Lost World isnât an entertaining piece of blockbuster escapism. It definitely is. And you can tell that Spielberg did his best with the basic elements that make up a typical Amblin production (fantastic visual world building, witty dialogue, and of course, the dinosaurs look spectacular). But at the very heart of it, there is much heart. Especially considering the the lead actors included Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, and Vince Vaughn, which, IMO, made for a better cast than the movie preceding this one. The oversized oomph that stampeded  through cinemas just four years earlier wasnât there. By any other filmmaker, that was fine. But with Steven Spielbergâs name on it, particularly at that time,  expectations were for nothing less than the best. Or at least, the biggest.
  I enjoy The Lost World: Jurassic Park every time I watch it. That is why itâs on this list. But considering the stakes of the brand, I really would have much preferred that it was good enough for a higher, much higher, spot than what I have it in now.
Easy.
 If youâre gonna give the Frankenstein Monster a house in the first film, then it only makes sense that you give Count Dracula a house to call his own. Then you follow up the formula of the first film by filling it in with a group of houseguests that includes fellow universal monster superstars the Wolfman and Frankie himself. And to separate the second installment from the first, you add in an evil scientist has a touch of Jekyll and Hyde to his demeanor, plus, my favorite, an Igor style hunchback but this time, make him a her.
 Now you have a final sequel which, despite its lack of any real scares, is still a fun watch and at least puts a nice little bow at the end to each of Universal Studiosâ top trio of terror, Drac, Frank, and the Wolfman.
Not only that, he also has both a United Federation starship and the Genesis device at his command.
Will the now Admiral James T. Kirk & Crew be able to stop the chesty madman before it's too late?
Well,
I don't wanna spoil the suspense for any viewers out there who have not yet seen this early 80's sci-fi classic, but since there were a bunch more sequels added to the franchise after this film, I'm sure it's pretty easy to figure out the outcome.
After the surprise success of the first flick, Bruce Campbell revisits the role as the teenage camper who comes back to the cabin in the woods to settle a score. And this time, he taking names and kicking Ash.
Actually, that's a really loose interpretation of what happens in this film since I could never tell just how much of a sequel the story from ED2 was supposed to be from EV1.
Nevertheless, thus began a franchise that would to continue to shamble much farther and much longer than Sam Raimi and friends could've ever fore"saw".
But through my lack of training and discipline, I was never enough of a master to be able to fight in any kind of a kung fu battle whilst in this alleviated state of inebriation. Particularly in any manner that allowed me to use every piece of furniture, silverware and/or knick-knacks that was in my immediate disposal in a cool offensive style like Jackie Chan does in this movie.
But, I was always drunk enough to at least think I could.
  But as a series that was the motion picture industry was never really able to connect to the main MCU property (most likely due to things like copyright issues, contracts and other stuff involving profit focused lawyers, obviously), it was a cinematic âworldâ that was able to hold its own.
 X-Men United was the first sequel of that stand alone world, and while it wasnât any kind of a game changer when it came to follow-up films, it worked well enough to establish the Children of the Atom as a franchise. It also succeeded in demonstrating that it was possible to bring a large cast together to portray a pretty big assemblage of superheroes more than a decade earlier than any of the Infinity films.  While there had been comic book sequels before this one, X2 was the one that solidified that any motion picture project that came after, multi-chapters and spinoffs were now part of the program.
 Which Iâm sure made many actors, not to mention, Hollywood agents and accountants, salivate with glee.
But you almost never hear about it's sequel, aptly named French Connection II (No "The" in this movie title), whether it be in discussion of cop flicks, or just in any kind of conversation whatsoever.
Maybe that's because, unlike it's predecessor, it's not a movie that helped to move or define the genre it belongs to.
Now, this isn't a criticism of the FC2. Because, on it's own, it stands as a pretty decent police thriller, as it follows Popeye Doyle across the ocean in pursuit of the drug-dealing frenchman who puts the "french" in the connection that this story is centered on.
It's just that, at it's best, what the film succeeds in is, for an hour and a half, the viewer is taken away on a ride-along of a cop caper that transcends international borders.
And compared to other films in this category, not that's not too bad.
 As I said, though, this is still a good movie. I found at least half the funnies laugh worthy and it was great to see the original cast come back for another shift behind the cash register.
After R:FBP2 however, Sly's crazy ex-soldier easily crossed over that line and just sorta became more of a cartoon-like character of violence that he's become famous for since then.
Still, for all the bloated brawny ridiculousness that has infested this franchise, I've been able to accept this particular movie for the fiery explosion-laden popcorn escapist fare that it is.
Though, that doesn't mean I have to like any of the sequels that followed up after this one. For me, those all still suck.
 I think it is a testament to how far we have come in terms of computer generated imagery that a movie like this one would be considered as simply average. Everything about it is fine. The story is good, the visuals are sharp crisp, and the caricature aspect works well enough to keep it from looking boring. The humor, while some of it is pretty predictable, overall, thereâs enough bite to fit within the premise of monsters running an establishment.
With the first chapter of the Harry Potter film franchise proving to be almost as successful as the book, the 2nd in the series is released (and in the nick of time considering that the movies must coincide with the age of the children actors) and solidifies that the kid with the lightning scar is worthy of the reputation of being "The Chosen One". Particularly when it comes to the tweener targeted box office.
Now because these first HP films were targeted towards a more younger demographic, the stories didn't really grab me as mush as the later, darker stories. However, I was still able to enjoy 'em for the colorful enthusiasm and youthful energy they take towards the initial arcane adventures of Harry, Hermione, Ron and the rest of Hogwarts' spellbinding sorcerous student body.
Not until they began getting more three dimensional with their graphics did I find myself seeing the three dimensional quality in their stories. And when it comes to computer generated films, I obviously prefer Pixar over Disney.
However, I do enjoy some of Uncle Walt's very early efforts in the area of cartoon cinema. Including the original Fantasia from the year 1940.
The first film successfully integrated classical music with animation in eight featurettes with each medium complimenting the other. The power of the music was enhanced by the visuals of each short (with various degrees of success of course) while at the same time, the hand crafted artwork of each cell seemed to be powered by the notes and melodies of each time tested arrangement.
Almost sixty years later, Disney released this follow-up, which follows the same format of the original with the same amount of varying degree of success of each feature. Although, TBH, personally, I wouldn't have minded if they could've found a way to rev up the stylings of both music and visuals in way that would have better demonstrated the progress made in each field. But in the end, F2000 still manages to entertain and delight in the same manner that Uncle Walt had envisioned when he first dreamed up this moused-eared manner of movie magic.
Harry Callahan may be a cop who's often referred to as "Dirty", but he's still a cop who strongly believes that, when it comes to taking the law into your own hands, a man has got to know his limitations. So when a "magnum force" of renegade officers begin a reign a rogue vigilantism, naturally, the only one who could stop 'em is a good cop with a bad attitude. With his trusty Smith & Wesson Model 29 .44 Magnum by his side, it's up to Dirty Harry to clean up the streets of dirty traffic officers who tend to deal with violations with more than just a citation.
And while it seems like it's the werewolf who experiences more development as a character, it's still cool to see that the creatures who have become staples in legendary lore of the scare flick are now sharing terrorizing tactics together in the same world.
Except now, these groups of movie installments were being called franchises.
The benefit being that now movie goers didn't consider themselves fans of a particular film, now they were fans of film franchise.
Now movie companies felt an obligation to pump out chapter after chapter of a franchise with more of a guarantee that "fans of the franchise" will still flock to see 'em. And whenever a certain chapter in the series hits a lull, all you have to do is "reboot" the series with a new first chapter, and start all over again.
To be honest, for me personally, is comes more as an endless cycle of movie marketing that is enough to make any serious connoisseur of the medium scream.
But still, Scream 2 was a good slasher flick.
Displaying vociferous success in terms of both script and box office, this is a sequel that shows that when it comes to this type of usually overwrought sharp edged thriller, screaming twice can be just as nice.
Yep, he's the Anti-Christ. But in the first film, we hardly got to know "Lucifer Jr." as the story and action centered more on the "paternal father" & how he deals with the fact that the boy who he thought was his son was in reality, "the Beast marked with the 666".
So in this follow-up, we now get to see what Damien the person is really like as he struggles thru the growing pains of anti-christlike adolescence. And just like any boy approaching manhood (or half-manhood, half goat-hood), he soon finds that even a pathway towards a demonic destiny is bound to be paved with a few blemishes and pimples along the way.
Hot Fuzz never really reaches as high a level of humor, humanity, wit as Shaun, nor is it as genre groundbreaking,
but when all is said and done, there was enough of the typical high balance of comedy and chemistry between the two "Bad Boys" to make this action comedy a commendable effort.
I hesitated about including this movie on this list, because I see it more as as it's own individual film, but since Pegg and Frost have stated that it's "Part 2" of their so-called "Three Flavours Cornetto" trilogy, the rest of the world of cinema fans have come to regard as an actual sequel (to Shaun). So I put here simply more as a way of avoiding any eventual questions of why it was not included.
But is it the outside world that has come to an end, or is it her host's sanity?
After Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, I've not read or heard anything about how this movie may have affected the amount of inmates coming in or the amount of inmates escaping out of Guantanamo Bay. One thing that I do know about G-Bay is that there has been a rise from government officials (including the President) to close down the detention facility. How or if Harold and Kumar's exploits may have influenced this attitude is not yet known.
Which is probably the main reason why the gal that the hero gets in this flick is played by the always insanely-beauteous Salma Hayek.
Kinda makes me wish I was good-looking.
Maybe then, I'd be spending alot more time outside of the house getting some action instead of kooked up in a dark room putting lists like this one together on the internet.
I enjoyed the first Cold Prey enough to see why it was such a surprise success. This 2nd installment, made more as a result of that the first one did so well (as opposed to a story that had always been planned to be made as a series from the start), follows the standard of other sequels that came from unexpected successful movies; it's not as good as the original. However, because it was somewhat willing to venture outside the formula it's predecessor, it felt more as an extension of the first film & not simply as a xerox-copied script hoping to just lazily cash in.
Well,
revealing the answer to that question would require some big-time spoiler,
so let me just say,
it's about time the films about the living dead starting showing some new signs of life.
However in keeping with the modern trend of putting the time, effort and money that is needed to make today's cinematic franchises profitable, these new MonsterVerse flicks have pretty much eliminated the big rubber feet style camp of earler kaiju and giant monkey movies. That doesn't guarantee that the stories of these new colossal creature features will be winning any awards any time soon, but the way they look could rack up a couple "Best Visual Effects" nom. And even if they don't, they will still most likely be pretty baddass.
And in King: Skull Island, which is really more of transitional film for the battle royale that is still yet to come, they are.
If there was a way to describe the first Busan movie in theatrical terms, I guess whe say that it's basically Runaway Train meets World War Z. In that regard, we could probaby then describe this fast-fiend follow-up as The Fast and the Furious meets World War Z ... with a nod to Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome ....and another nod to the Road Warrior ... and maybe a slight hint towards Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Basically, it's a series whose major premise is to hve different types of fast moving vehicles smash into World War Z types of carcass-accumulated pile-ups. And just like it's predecessor, Peninsula does a good job of delivering it's goods while at the same time, stitching it's undead body count action scenes with the type of talking head scenes that build a story that actually comes to life in the midst of all the macabre and mercurial moving mayhem.
And now, the smartened up simians have learned how to shoot guns and have thus turned our own weapons against us (NRA groups, are you listening?).
Oh woe, the future looks pretty bad for humankind, yet pretty damn good for the monkeys.
This planet has now seen a new dawn...
one that's full of those damn dirty apes!
Take out the Australian part, and you could easily be describing my last girlfriend. ('Ey, who do I talk to about having a "ba-dum-tish!" emoticon installed around here, anyway?)
An underrated and good intentioned sequel that never seems to get the kind of fair shakes that it deserves.
Backstepping through the City Of Sins, the three grown-up "katzenjammer kids" discovery that the happenings of what occurred the night before is a murky mystery wrapped in one raunchous riddle after another.
Jump to 20, the same group of party-hadry boys once again find themselves in almost the exact same situation, although this time, the backdrop of Bangkok Thailand.
The Hangover movies have become one of the biggest blockbusting comedy franchises to come out in years. And after experiencing the some of the lascivious out-loud laughter that resulted from these two first films, it's pretty easy to see why.
To be honest, over-all, as a film, I liked 28 Weeks Later more than it's predecessor, 28 Days.
I thought that Days was much horror-like than it's sequel, but, for me, Weeks had a much more thrilling factor. I liked the increase of the non-stop action, and I found the plot to be more cohesive (whereas in the first movie, the antagonists seemed to change mid-thru, from the zombies to the stoney-hearted soldiers).
I mean, don't get me wrong, Weeks has enough to qualify itself into the category of the horror genre.
But Days felt like it had the creepiness factor in it's advantage since it's the film that first introduces the rabies-infected psuedo-zombies that liked to behave more like the running dead than they did the walking dead.
Either way , between the two films, the quality of the franchise so far is high enough that I'm glad to be able to include both of them on my list of fear-fraught favorites.
Taking on the subject of equality as it's theme, White tells the tale of a man named Karol Karol, who after losing literally everything in his life, embarks on a series of acts with hopeful result of setting his life aright.
Despite some of it's darker plot elements and unlike it's movie brothers, White takes a lighter approach in it's unfolding of it's machinations (which may be due to it's color scheme). Considered as the "weakest" of the three Colours, it is nevertheless still regarded as one of the best films to come out of the year 1994.
when captured on film, they can reveal just how gruesome the glam of lead laden rock'n'roll can truly be.
And in this one, the games are still hungry, Lawrence is still hot, and the shaft that she grips as her primary weapon is still taut for release.
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To be quite honest, as someone who, as a kid, was raised never to play with his food, I wasn't sure how I would respond to these here Hunger Games. But I must say, I found these first two installments of the millenial blockbusting franchise to be quite an enjoyable little epic saga.Â
Nowadays, when it comes to superior sequels, the theatres aren't exactly crawlin' with 'em, but still, there are definitely alot more now than then.
Clint Eastwood excellently directs this tale of the pacific war from the view of a band Japanese.
A country in which the war is not just against the the Allies, but also in a war within itself between the new methods and technology of the new age against it's revered ancient traditions of honor for one's native land and emperor, not to mention against the obligational feelings towards own family.
Who knew that a tale about the "other side" would make such a great American movie?
Since it is usually considered more of a companion piece to Flags of Our Fathers, I debated whether on not to include Letters here on a sequels list. The inclusion of Charles W. Lindberg, played by Alessandro Mastrobuono, in both films is finally what made me decide to put it here, although I will not debate anyone who may feel otherwise.
The end result is a group of story-lines of real lives that cause the kind of deep reflection and introspection than can only come from being a spectator of human lives other than our own.
The Doctor asks: "What's the problem?"
The woman says: "Doctor, I don't know what to do. Every day my husband seems to lose his temper for no reason. It scares me."
The Doctor says: "I have a cure for that. When it seems that your husband is getting angry, just take a glass of water and start swishing it in your mouth. Just swish and swish but don't swallow it until he either leaves the room or calms down."
Two weeks later the woman comes back to the doctor looking fresh and reborn.
The woman says: "Doctor that was a brilliant idea! Every time my husband started losing it, I swished with water. I swished and swished, and he calmed right down! How does a glass of water do that?"
The Doctor says: "The water itself does nothing. It's keeping your mouth shut that does the trick."
I know that joke has nothing to do with this movie, but it's one that always come to mind whenever I think about the idea of women playing with fire. :P
The second chapter of the Millenium Trilogy, a series which despite it's fiery debut, seemed to burn out with most other connoiseurs of cinema. But for me, I found it to be quite a satisfactory series, overall.
In this second chapter of the Hobbit movie franchise, the central big-footed protagonist, Bilbo Baggins, causes what would eventually lead to the desolation of Smaug.
And while that sounds more like a job for the Department Of Air Quality Control in the city of Los Angeles, in the world of Middle-Earth, it's actually the manner in which a lord of the ring goes about slaying a dragon.
In this "early" installment of the Tolkien epic fantasy series Peter Jackson and his crew continue the very complicated journey of "bringing home the gold", juggling Hobbits, wizards, orcs, elves, wargs and a buncha other eldritch life-forms, the kind of which you would usually find in any fantasy-based novel, but for so long, were very difficult to pull off on the silver screen. I mention this just because TDoS, along with the rest of the Hobbit series, got such a lukewarm reponse from so many other cinephiles, despite the accolades and awards of the LotR trilogy. But for me, I thought they did a great job of bringing to life this classic saga of sword, sorcey and Smaug. And therefore, this expansive prequel trilogy will always have a home in my favorite films lists, even though elsewhere, judging from the vast majority of ratings and reviews, it's placement in the fantasy film genre will most likely be one of overall general "desolation".
That is, until Split came along.
A story about a mentally disturbed patient suffering from dissociative identity disorder. In total, he has 23 separate personalities, each distinct from the others. And one, called "The Beast" which seems to endow with extraordinary abilities.
- Manon des Sources
- Sanjuro
- 22 Jump Street
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