| As I write this, the top three films at the box office are all "three-quels"– third entries in the popular "Spider-Man," "Shrek" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchises. This week marks the opening of a third "Ocean’s Eleven" movie. Soon, we’ll have Rush Hour 3, The Bourne Ultimatum, Resident Evil: Extinction and even Mortal Kombat: Devastation. Clearly, audiences have forgotten the very basic wisdom that three-quels tend to suck.
OK, that may be a broad and easily-countered generalization, but c’mon. How many flicks with the Roman numeral "III" in the title have burned you? And yet we buy tickets, just to show how much we enjoyed the first movie. Are we nuts? What about all that folk wisdom about beating dead horses, or returning to dry wells? Why are we doing this again, when we know sequels suck? Simple. It’s summer. We’re bored, and we wanna see what Spider-Man is up to this year. Perfectly understandable, really.
One of the biggest determiners in how enjoyable a film turns out to be is how high our expectations are – fortunately, that’s one factor we’re in control of. If you lower your expectations, the film comes off better. Don’t compare three-quels to the original films – instead compare them to other three-quels. Hey, this movie sucks compared to The Matrix (1999), but it’s waaaaaay better than Highlander III (1994)!
With this in mind, here’s a little list of three-quels, good and bad. Hey, they can’t all be as good as Three Colours: Red (1994) or Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003).
· Jurassic Park III (2001) –You know a film’s in trouble when the most memorable scene involves trying to find a ringing telephone in a huge pile of dinosaur shit. Audiences were aghast when the plotline ended with the army arriving to fight the dinosaurs, but the movie refused to show the battle! Helicopters and Jeeps are attacking a T-Rex, but, no, let’s just cut to a shot of the protagonists leaving the island and reading the in-flight magazine. That’s what people want to see!
· Alien3 (1992) – After two awesome movies, the Alien franchise hit this brown-tinged stinkbomb. "Who the hell is David Fincher, and whose idea was it to put him in charge?" we demanded. Then Fincher bounced back with Se7en (1995) and Fight Club (1999). We scratched our heads. "This guy’s really talented! What the hell happened to Alien3?" we questioned, overlooking the simple explanation that it was the third movie in the series and therefore doomed.
· Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005) – Old school Star Wars fans went to this one dearly hoping that it would revitalize a failing franchise and justify the time and money we spent on the awful episodes one and two. Sure, it’s the best of the prequels, but it’s still pretty yuck.
· Return of the Jedi (1983) – Speaking of Star Wars three-quels, this one continues to spark geek debates. Those of us who saw it in theatres back in ’83 love it, but now that we know that George Lucas isn’t infallible, we have a hard time defending it from youngsters who point out that it’s a film about ewoks. Then they start singing the Jub Jub song, and we slink into the corner and sulk.
· The Matrix Revolutions (2003) – Like many others, I believed the Wachowski brothers when they said that the two sequels to The Matrix (1999) would be even better than the original. That was incredibly naïve of me. Ten minutes into Revolutions, I gave up all hope of the movie improving and watched in a placid, dreamlike state, fully intending to forget both sequels as quickly as possible. It’s a tactic that served me well.
· Goldfinger (1964) – See? I told you there were a few good ones, too. In fact, for many viewers, Goldfinger rates as the definitive Bond film from the Connery years, which many would argue makes it the top Bond film, full stop. This was the flick that introduced us to "The Gimmick-Using Henchman" (OddJob and his lethal hat), and set up a formula for Bond films that was rigorously adhered to for years.
· Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) – For a flick that’s up against two cinematic curses — the one against three-quels and the one against odd-numbered Star Trek films – this flick actually does fairly well. Still, compared to Wrath of Khan, this is weak sauce.
· Blade: Trinity (2004) – Wow! Wesley Snipes really looks like he doesn’t want to be in this film, and who could blame him? It actually turns into an iPod commercial halfway through. Jessica Biel is hot, though.
· Beverly Hills Cop III (1994) – This came out seven years after Beverly Hills Cop 2. Nobody noticed.
· Superman III (1983) – I can understand the need to lighten things up a bit from the first movie. Still, the decision to turn a Superman film into a Richard Pryor vehicle is mystifying.
· RoboCop 3 (1993) – It’s RoboCop with a PG-13 rating! Goodbye, satire and ultraviolence. Hello, jetpacks and kid sidekicks!
If you’re looking for more of the same (and based on ticket sales, you are!) here’s a brief list of other three-quels: Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles (2001), Free Willy 3: The Rescue (1997), Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), Beethoven’s Third (2000), Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003) and Police Academy 3: Back in Training (1986). Watch with caution. |
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