Worst Third Film in a Series

Surprised at the lack of Superman 3 hate on here...

I watched Alien3 again recently and while it's definitely my least favorite of the series it's still got a few genuinely memorable moments. There's just too much lingering on the wrong things and not enough development of the potentially interesting parts. Whatever else was going wrong in the production of this thing, Sigourney Weaver is the driving engine of the series and she doesn't let down here.

Back to the Future 3 is just dopey - if you accept the premise it's fine I guess, but after the sweet high-concept comedy of #1 and all the timeline-altering hijinks of #2 it just has so much less going on. Whose idea was it that the entire thing would be in the Wild West? I admit that it beats some Quantum Leap thing where they do a cowboy part, a pirate part, etc...but it's still corny.

Die Hard With A Vengeance is a blast. It's too damn long and episodic - they clearly hadn't worked out how to end the thing - but it's got too many classic Die Hard lines to be discounted. OK, it was a weird move for the series to become a chase all around town instead of a confined-space thing, but there are other ways in which it fits into the lineage - mainly the great fake-out by the bad guy. And possibly my favorite line ever by John McClane, over a truck CB: Attention! Attention! Nils is dead! I repeat, Nils is dead, fuck-head!

No, this is Matrix: Revolutions's poll to lose. A trudging CG fest with all the detail, complexity, and drama of a video game FMV from 1998, it's one of the worst movies I've ever seen, let alone worst third movie in a series.

Die Hard With A Vengeance is the best in the whole series!! wtf.

-- nickalicious

Do you also eat dinner first thing in the morning and put your shoes on your head and your hat on your feet?

-- antexit

YA SRSLY. I mean, I dig on bad/campy movies as much as anyone, and enjoy movies that freely switch between bad-ass and stupid (Delta Force comes to mind). But DHWAV didn't work for me on that basis either -- I just sat there astonished at what a complete turd it became, after a sort-of promising 20 minutes.

Haven't seen Die Hard II, though, so I'm not evaluating it within the series, just as a shitty movie in its own right.

xpost the one-liners did nothing for me, and I wasn't having enough fun to want to believe in the fake-out

Superman III has one plus: Chris Reeves never looked hotter than in the scene where he flicks peanuts at booze bottles.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

this belongs to matrix revolutions

wachowskis deserve every inch of hate that can possibly be bestowed on to them.

what was the third Aladdin called...

Jurassic Park 3 shoulda been here too

Jurassic Park 3 was silly but at least it wasn't the Lost World. And it's like half an hour shorter, too.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

ahh, The Lost World. I wish it was a third film just so it could be on this list.

The movie famous for a young girl gymnast ACTUALLY SOMERSALTING AND KICKING OVER A DINOSAUR THAT WEIGHS SEVERAL TONS

The Schumacher Batmans I am now considering as their own separate thing, so now since 1989 there have been 3 sets of 2 Batman movies. Thus, Batman Forever is not the 3rd film of this series, but is rather the 1st in its own series. (I realize it was billed as the third and fourth upon their release, but Burton's and Shumacher's visions were so far apart from each other that in retrospect it doesn't make sense to group them together.)

disqualified

OCEAN'S THIRTEEN

Matrix wins!

this really should've been won by a series where the 2nd was good enough that the 3rd could be considered a letdown.

take it to appeals!

lest we forget the other 'number 3s in 3-D' from the micro-genre:

Amityville 3-D:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM0SWbO_VxE
"...as the horror reaches out beyond the edge of the screen"

and also:

Frday the 3th part 3-D! :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8WcC4pS_tU
"and now you can't even keep him on the screen"

Boy had i forgotten about the early 80s 3-D revival. What brought that on i wonder?

Yeah, yknow, at the time my feeling was that Matrix Reloaded was a letdown from the first but KINDA okay, so then Revolutions was just so unspeakably bad and stupid that it really stood out. But I'm watching Reloaded on TV right now and it's just as uninvolving and inept as Revolutions, just it's uninvolving dialogue scenes rather than uninvolving CG. I think it really benefited from the sense that all this portentous crap was going somewhere; knowing that it's not, it's REALLY tedious to sit through all the portents. So I think if I could I would go back and change my vote from Revolutions to Superman 3 or BTTF3.

Noted.

i don't hate jackson's LOTR trilogy as much as i used to. all wounds really do heal with time.

BTTF 3 is good.

the naked gun 33 1/3 was pretty bad.

have there been any GREAT 3rd films in a series? has there been a poll for best?

worst drop off has to be Jedi. the new Star Trek wipes the *floor* with Jedi and i said that as massive fan of the first 3 Star Wars films.

"have there been any GREAT 3rd films in a series?"

bourne ultimatums.

i must watch those.

its totally batman forever.

oh and yea bourne ultimatum was soooooooo awesome

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.

I mean, the second Matrix was shitty as well, no?

Apart from the Godfather, which of these films had a sequel as good/better than the first?

i'll rep for thunderdome. critics loved it, but after the bleak awesomeness of Road Warrior, Tina Turner and some midget who is one half of "master blaster"? I didn't even finish teh movie, and I hear the second half is potentially worse!

batman forever>>>> robocop 3.

I guess you could argue that robocop 3 isn't terrible because it's such a hypnotic trainwreck.

i've never been tempted to watch it

no return of the king = bjo FUCKIN' UP

Die Hard with a Vengeance is a pretty great 3rd movie

yea i mean Samuel L. Jackson!!!11!!

working on the list for a sequel to this thread, which in the spirit of things will probably manage to be both unwanted and somehow disappointing anyway. question: what's the maximum number of poll options? i remember it being 50, is that right?

"I penetrated your dad's Fortress of Solitude, motherfucker!" would've been the highlight of Superman III.

Watched Superman III with my sibs over the holidays. Love that POS so much.

perverse

^yes i would totally be down to watch Supes 3 right now. it's probably the Superman movie i've seen the most times. lot of crazy shit to love in that film.

shoutout to whoever watched free willy 3

free willy 2 was the first movie where i realized i was watching a bad movie

Seriously, it's like...maybe stop getting captured already, Willy.

I freed my willy

I'll never forget sitting in the theatre watching Made in America (the Ted Danson/Whoopi Goldberg thing, yeah) and the trailer for the original FW showing before the film. As soon as the title flashed on the screen at the end of the trailer, the whole crowd burst out laughing.

free willy - a thirst 4 vengeance, rated R