Top 10 movie sequels we didn't need

Sharon Stone's sex-charged sequel to Basic Instinct earns a rightful place on nzherald.co.nz's list of top ten movie sequels which should never have been made. Photo / Supplied

Ageing big-screen action hero Sylvester Stallone is set to flex his manly muscles yet again as Vietnam veteran John Rambo in a fifth outing of the gung-ho action franchise.

Stallone, 63, will reprise his role as the renegade hero for the sequel, due to start shooting in 2010, this time combating Mexican drug lords and human traffickers while ratcheting up the usual body count.

While die-hard Rambo fans no doubt rejoice that Stallone hasn't in fact sent his one-man war machine out to pasture, we ponder: How many other unwanted movie sequels are there that should never have been made?

Here's nzherald.co.nz's list of sequels of which we dare not speak their name:

10. Freddy's Dead - The Final Nightmare
They tried to burn him. They tried to bury him. They tried to wash him away with holy water. But he came back, again, again, and again. Freddy 'razor-fingered' Krueger returns for one last shout to haunt our dreams and capture our souls in this bonafide turkey which ultimately proves one thing: it really is time someone made Freddy hang up his hat for good.

9. Jaws - The Revenge
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...up pops the razor-toothed clockwork eating machine with your limbs in mind. Widow Ellen Brody (Lorraine Gary) flees Amity Island to the sanctuary of the Bahamas, convinced that the great white is stalking her and her brood because of some "evil curse". She's right, of course. But she endures, with a little help from love interest and carefree pilot (Michael Caine).

8. Alien: Resurrection
What were you thinking, Sigourney Weaver? Kicking off 200 years after the previous sequel, Alien 3, Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) returns after she's cloned, along with the alien queen inside her, by a gang of scientists intent on breeding the ultimate weapon. A lot more than "all hell" breaks loose as Ripley teams up with a band of smugglers, including a mechanic named Call (Winona Ryder), to win the day.

7. Basic Instinct 2
Sharon Stone reprises her role as novelist and suspected serial murderer Catherine Tramell in this long-delayed sequel to 1992's Basic Instinct. Once again, Tramell draws in an unsuspecting male, not a cop this time, but a psychologist who's mentally drawn to her and sucked into her web of lies and seduction, revealing his basic instincts. As you do.

6. Speed 2
Sandra Bullock reprises her star-making role as Annie Porter, a woman expecting to enjoy a Caribbean vacation with her boyfriend (Jason Patric) on board the world's most luxurious cruise liner. But their trip to paradise turns deadly when a lunatic computer genius (Willem Dafoe) takes over the boat and sets it on a course for destruction.

The original's leading male, Keanu 'The One' Reeves, wisely opted out of this stinker of a sequel, only to be replaced by a square-jawed Jason Patric whose on-screen chemistry with the Bullock amounted to the square root of nothing.

5. Grease 2
This unnecessary sequel to the first film, which starred the powerhouse talent of John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, was both a critical and commercial failure. Starring the then-unknown Michelle Pfeiffer, it picks up two years after the original gang graduated from Rydell High, and follows the yawning exploits of a boy newcomer who's desperate to catch the eye of the blonde bombshell leader of the Pink Ladies, Stephanie Zinone (Pfeiffer).

4. Police Academy 7: Mission to Moscow
For the seventh film, the screwball Police Academy squad goes global. Alan Metter (Back to School) directs on location in Moscow as the boys and girls in blue take on the Godfather of the Russian mob (Ron Perlman), whose computer program plays like a video game but can actually steal money and goods planet wide without a trace. Total travesty.

3. Matrix Revolutions
Ah, the third and final instalment of The Matrix trilogy. The city of Zion, last bastion of the human race, defends itself against the massive invasion of the machines as Neo attempts to fulfill his prophecy as 'The One'. Self-indulgent and full of metaphysical hokum, Revolutions goes down in a blaze of CGI-propped glory.

2. Batman & Robin
George Clooney is Batman as the dark knight battles his greatest threat yet: Cold-hearted Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and venomous Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman). Directed by Joel Schumacher, the film was widely panned for its campy-take on the franchise and frequently pops up on 'worst ever' lists online. Hammy and over-acted, Batman & Robin is a celluloid smorgasbord of dull.

1. Star Wars - Episode I, The Phantom Menace
Every generation has a legend. Every journey has a first step. Every saga has a beginning. Unfortunately. Not strictly a sequel, officially a prequel, but George Lucas' Menace still gains its rightful place at the top of our list of shame.

Formulaic, over-cooked, with inexplicable plot twists, tongue-in-cheek dialogue and more than a fistful of loose ends, Phantom bares no real resemblance to the freshness and cool that tantalised moviegoers' senses so craftily with the original episodes.

"I have a bad feeling about this," remarks Obi-Wan Kenobi (played by Ewan McGregor) as Phantom unrolls. And so did we.

- NZ HERALD ONLINE