THE NINE LEVELS OF HELL (AS APPLIED TO UNDERWHELMING THIRD ENTRIES IN MOVIE FRANCHISES)
To qualify for this list, a third movie in a trilogy must fit these qualifications:
1.) It must suck. Therefore, Back To The Future III, for example, doesn’t qualify.
2.) It must be a worse movie than its two predecessors. If Army of Darkness were a bad movie, hypothetically speaking, it wouldn’t qualify, because the original Evil Dead is pretty bad.
3.) Its two predecessors must at least have been okay, and preferably good (although it’s permissible for the first to be better than the second). This knocks out, for example, Austin Powers: Goldmember, because the second Austin Powers movie is just unwatchable crap. (If you liked it, tough noogies. My list.)
4.) Its two predecessors must have been somewhat notable. This cuts out most horror movie trilogies, which are mostly boringly bad and of a generally mediocre quality throughout.
Thus:
FIRST LEVEL: Star Trek III: The Search For Spock, Rocky III, Rambo III, Lethal Weapon 3, Max Max: Beyond Thunderdome
SECOND LEVEL: Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation, X3: The Last Stand, Friday After Next, Spy Kids 3D
THIRD LEVEL: American Wedding, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, The Naked Gun 33 1/3rd
FOURTH LEVEL: Alien 3, The Matrix Revolutions, Blade: Trinity, Major League: Back To The Minors
FIFTH LEVEL: Spider-Man III, The Godfather Part III, Speed Zone!, Scream 3
SIXTH LEVEL: Batman Forever, Scary Movie III, Hellraiser 3: Hell On Earth, The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift
SEVENTH LEVEL: Beverly Hills Cop III, The Bad News Bears Go To Japan, Crocodile Dundee In Los Angeles
EIGHTH LEVEL: Shrek the Third, Rush Hour 3, Addams Family Reunion
NINTH LEVEL: Superman III, Look Who’s Talking Now
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9th level being the worst? Hmmm.
I’d disagree on Superman 3 and Naked Gun 33 1/3rd.
And on further rumination, Batman Forever and Scary Movie 3, because their respective second movies both sucked.
I take exception to:
1) The Godfather Part III. This did not suck, therefore it does not meet the criteria set out in Rule 1. I’ll grant that it was nowhere near as good as I and II, and comparatively sucky, but as a stand alone movie, it ranks in the middle of the set of {all gangster flicks}.
2) The Matrix Revolutions. Violates Rule 2. Matrix II is the worst of the three.
3) Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation. Violates rule 3. Nerds in Paradise was not okay. It was terrible.
The Godfather Part III is genuinely terrible on its own merits, not just bad in comparison to I and II but with long stretches of nigh-unwatchableness.
Matrix Reloaded is far superior to Revolutions – I actually kind of like Revolutions but Reloaded sets up a large number of interesting questions which Revolutions just fails to answer.
Nerds III is a terrible, terrible made-for-TV movie where Ted McGinley’s character grows up and stops being a dickhead. The second Nerds is bad, but it is bad in the entertainingly 80s-movie-bad sort of way. The third Nerds just misses the point.
And Batman Returns is glorious lunacy, one of the most underrated films in Burton’s career, and although really weird, gets at the heart of the Batman/Catwoman romance in a way most nobody else ever has.
I don’t see the Air Bud or MVP series!?
Is the implication here that the Fast and the Furious movies were not crap throughout?
How can you say Beyond Thunderdome sucked? It had a megaperson!
Karen: I don’t think movie one of either respective franchise meets the criteria set forth, let alone their sequels.
And I liked Blade 3.
Also, surely the third Speed! was direct to video, and oh shit did you just say the second was good? Are you fucking with me?
I liked Blade 3 and thought Blade 2 was unwatchable dreck.
Of course, I’m pretty sure that the main reason I liked Blade 3 was Ryan Reynolds snark (and his magical nekkid chest) an attribute I could see you overlooking.
There was a third Speed?!?!?!
How can you say Beyond Thunderdome sucked? It had a megaperson!
On a related note (although Thunderdome did kinda suck) the first Mad max was freaking awful, so rule 2 is violated here.
Batman Forever is second or third level at worst, surely. The villains were all wrong (the Riddler and Two-Face both have pretty simple gimmicks, and they somehow completely missed the boat on both of them), but the Batman in this film is the most likely out of any of the Batmen we have seen on film to date to join the Justice League. Seriously, Batman Forever’s Batman is the one on Grant Morrison’s JLA roster. That must count for something…
Tokyo Drift is at least three times better than 2 Fast 2 Furious.
Not that saying so implies that it’s Casablanca. But still.
I would put Saw III in at the seventh level of Hell for going from poetic injustice straight to torture porn.
I agree with Jeff that Tokyo Drift was better than its predecessor.
I didn’t even know Addams Family Reunion existed.
Also, Matrix Revolutions belongs in at least the seventh level of Hell.
Holy shit, they did a third Speed? Eww.
Okay, upon further investigation, Speed Zone! is actually the third movie in the Cannonball Run series. I didn’t even know at third existed.
I’m not sure Blade 3 qualifies. It may have been bad, but certainly not as bad as Blade 2.
“Its two predecessors must at least have been okay, and preferably good (although it’s permissible for the first to be better than the second)”
I don’t think Scary Movie 3 meets this criteria at all.
I’m a little surprised that Return of the Jedi isn’t on the list. (At least at level one or two.) I mean, I like it, but it’s reputation among Star Wars fans has certainly diminished through the years.
And watchoo talkin’ ’bout Evil Dead being bad?!?!
Batman and Robin deserves nothing less than a spot in the Ninth Ring of Film Hell. It is abomination and anathema.
I am amazing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III isn’t on the list.
(They’re ninja turtles! In ancient Japan! Why are they dressed like samurai?)
Could there be an inverse version of this list? With films like Star Wars Episode III and the Bourne Ultimatum?
” If Army of Darkness were a bad movie, hypothetically speaking,”
IT BETTER BE HYPOTHETICAL.
I swear, the only way this movie could have been possibly better is… Damn, this movie COULDN’T possibly be better.
Except maybe if Ash punched out a Dino– No wait, he did that. Shit. That movie did have pretty much everything.
Random thoughts:
‘Star Trek III’? I always thought that was too bland to suck. It’s just sort of innocuous time-filler, the sort of thing you can’t be bothered to like or dislike. Sort of like, you know, all seven seasons of ‘Next Gen’. 🙂
X3 should be up a level. It was bad, but it had its moments. The only big mistakes it made were a) in trying to cram the Phoenix plot into a movie that had plenty going on without it, and b) actually thinking Halle Berry could act.
Naked Gun 33 1/3 shouldn’t be on this list, because it was every bit as good as the first two. (YMMV on whether you like that style of humor, but I didn’t think there was any drop-off from one film to the next.)
You’ve already stated your opinion on this, but I concur with the posters who pointed out that ‘Reloaded’ was agonizingly bad. Endless scenes of people we didn’t care about yammering at each other, the amazing ending of the first film retconned to, “Neo’s sort of like Superman when he’s inside the Matrix, only he wears sunglasses,” a monologue so dull that I literally had to explain it to someone over again after the movie was over, because he said “after a minute or two, it all just started sounding like the adults in ‘Peanuts'”, and a basic total failure of imagination on every level in every way, shape, and form.
I don’t think ‘Spider-Man 3’ was bad enough to be in here. Was it as good as the first two? Heck, no. But I think it overall avoided sucking, despite some bad moments (sorry, Sam, but Rule #1 of Comics: Nothing Good Ever Comes Out Of Fucking With The Origin Sequence.)
Scary Movie 3 shouldn’t be on this list, because the entire Scary Movie series is a black hole from which no humor can escape. Seriously, my room-mate brought the first one home, and I told him that if he ever did anything to me like that again, I’m changing the fucking locks. I am embarrassed to be a member of the same species that produced those films. Hell, I talked with a couple of iguanas the other day, and they said they were ashamed to be a member of the same phylum as those fuckers.
Seriously? I’m the only person who objects to Alien 3 being on the list?
It’s my favorite of the franchise. I think it’s a beautifully weird, gothic story. It is “different,” yes, from the previous two movies, but no more different from Aliens than Aliens is from Alien, surely? Plus, David Fincher. I am madly in love with David Fincher and the way he films movies. From a purely, ah, aesthetic standpoint, of course.
Huh.
“Seriously? I’m the only person who objects to Alien 3 being on the list?”
Nope. I’m with you on this one. Far far better than Aliens. And I have to take exception to Star Trek III being on the list, too. It’s no Wrath of Khan, but who here would rather watch The Motion Picture than The Search For Spock?
“Seriously? I’m the only person who objects to Alien 3 being on the list?”
Honestly I’ve always been of the opinion that the Alien films are a series-in-name-only. They really bear no resemblance to one another aside from having Aliens and Ripley in them.
On the subject of The Matrix sequels… I’ve always thought of them as one 4-hour long movie that just gets progressively worse as it goes on.
And I’ve never gotten the hate for Spider-Man 3. The Sandman storyline was stupid, yes, but Topher Grace was damn good and, while I admit the Peter-is-an-asshole thing made little sense, it was amusing.