Worst Fourth Film In A Series

Fuck, I got my Bonds scrambled - I'd have tried to make space for Thunderball. It doesn't really belong amongst the swill here, but it's easily the least watchable until the late Moore films at least. But idk, even in a bad movie it's good to see Connery as Bond, counts for sth against all... that.. swimming.

I struggled with Frankenstein and Dracula and Godzilla, who each have a few "series" - felt like it was a case of, include em all or include none. Tbh Morbs I'd've figured you for an Abbott and Costello Meet The Mummy voter.

Most of the Universal Monster sequels I've seen are just baaaaarely sequels in any meaningful sense, so I wouldn't sweat that too much.

* Batman & Robin

even joel schumacher regrets this movie

"If there's anybody watching this, that... let's say, loved Batman Forever, and went into Batman & Robin with great anticipation, if I've disappointed them in any way, then I really want to apologize. Because it wasn't my intention. My intention was just to entertain them."

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes rules.

I've only seen five of these, of which the worst is Phantom Menace. But I can't imagine Scary Movie 4 not being the worst shit ever.

Alien: Resurrection - I think I remember this being okay and at least nice to look at.
The Bourne Legacy - This wasn't as bad as it could've been (and was maybe better than Jason Bourne) but I don't remember a thing about it.
Bride of Chucky - Better than its three precedents but not as good as the immediate follow-up.
Exorcist: The Beginning - I think this was the Renny Harlin version? I saw the Schrader version, which was passable and at least better than The Heretic.
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers - Probably the worst on this list but I'm not sure I particularly like any of the series except 3.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - Roughly as good as the rest. A surprisingly decent series.
Hellraiser: Bloodline - Ugh.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - I only saw part of this on TV at Thanksgiving one year but it looked pretty bad.
Jaws: the Revenge - The shark swims hundreds of miles to get revenge. It jumps out of the water and roars like a tiger. What's not to love.
Jurassic World - Just entertaining enough to offset how bad and stupid it was.
Land of the Dead - Good on its own, though it obviously pales in comparison to its forebears.
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol - I don't know what the hell Woo was trying to achieve with the second one but this series is otherwise pretty damn solid.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master - My favorite of the series.
Police Academy 4: Citizens On Patrol - I started rewatching these a couple years ago for unknown reasons and was surprised to realize that the first two were (while dumb as hell) actually pretty funny. The third one was like if someone was transcribing jokes from the first two while they were half awake so they still had the air of a joke but were divorced from context so they basically just became catchphrases that no one was asking for. Never bothered to rewatch the fourth after that.
Scream 4 - It happened, guess it was okay, barely remember.
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace - I think this was just more boring than anything. Trade disagreements and kids going 'yipeeee!' is not what I look for in a SW movie.
Superman IV: The Quest For Peace - Haven't seen it in years, but I'm sure it's fantastic.

pirates of the caribbean 4 might have the back story which reads most likely a lazy satire of creatively bankrupt hollywood thinking: a movie based on a theme park ride which was then spun into an entirely unnecessary trilogy and then had a fourth installment retrofitted from an unrelated novel

Superman IV: The Quest For Peace - Haven't seen it in years, but I'm sure it's fantastic.

― Milkwalker's World (Old Lunch), Saturday, 18 March 2017 00:52 (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/575/386/c0d.gif

Thank you for the confirmation! That ridiculousness might top ornery, drunken Superman from the third movie.

Superman IV is reeeeal tough to take. I kinda like how lame and OTT the Nuclear Man is but generally the effects are cheap and obvious (there's a long flying sequence with AWFUL rear projections, looks twenty years out of date) and wayyyyy too much of the movie is cheap-to-shoot, nails-on-a-chalkboard love triangle/they're-taking-over-the-newspaper stuff. OTOH it's nice seeing Mariel Hemingway, and while Jon Cryer is annoying as Lex's teenaged nephew or whatever, it's not measurably more irritating than Ned Beatty was as his dimwitted henchman.

Weren't all of the Die Hard sequels originally totally different scripts/adaptations that shoehorned McClane into the story?

love love love Superman IV so much. It is so awesomely horrible!

i love scream 4 with all of my heart

I think Die Hard With A Vengeance is actually *two different* scripts/adaptations that shoehorned John McClane into the story! Or someone's spare list of possible Die Hard sequel treatments, combined with someone's spec script for a Dirty Harry ripoff called 'Simon Says.'

actual good films in this list:

fast and furious
bride of chucky
friday the 13th the final chapter
ghost protocol
nightmare 4: the dream master
rocky iv
scream 4
step up: revolution (they do heavily choreographed flash mobs with a live dj to save the community center/neighborhood, a legit masterpiece)

probably gonna vote for halloween 4 but also extremely inclined to vote for terminator salvation

oh and i like alien resurrection a lot except for the human baby alien design

best thing in superman iv is superman rolling up to the united nations building in new york to deliver his message of nuclear disarmament

except it was actually filmed in front of a grey concrete hotel in a damp and cold-looking milton keynes and clearly the crew had neither the budget nor the expertise to hide it

it's like superman has turned up to his local council offices to ask about the planning permissions he'll need for his kitchen extension

against all the odds tho christopher reeves is still really good in it

probably gonna vote for halloween 4 but also extremely inclined to vote for terminator salvation

for real, terminator salvation is an abomination

haven't seen many of these...

Alien: Resurrection - agreeably, colorfully & ambitiously bad, disappointing only in light of what came before
Bride of Chucky - entertaining horror comedy, only film in the series i really like
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes - weird, bad & interesting (like all the apes sequels)
Exorcist: The Beginning - complete garbage, one of the worst movies i've ever seen (applies to both versions)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - good movie, though a big step down from the prisoner of azkaban
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - mediocre crap, not actively offensive
Land of the Dead - ordinary, everyday bad
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master - terrible but fun, lots of zany, MTV-era nightmare sequences
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - better than the 4th indiana jones flick
Rocky IV - all data lost
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace - horrid and too boring to care about
Superman IV: The Quest For Peace - like rocky iv, i'm sure i saw it, but...
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation - objectively terrible and yet fascinating, has moments

Rocky IV - all data lost

wtf this is the batshit one where rocky beats seven bells out of the ussr in the form of a heavily-oiled dolph lundgren

unforgettable surely

I tried to vote in the sense that I enjoyed the previous 3 movies, so I picked Superman IV.

voted for Phantom Menace due to the considerable drop in anything resembling entertainment value, interesting characters, humor, and a lack of understanding of what made Star Wars work in the first place, all from the guy who originally created it.

Crystal Skull, for example, is not really good but it's more of a misfire than complete incompetence, i mean at least it had the same spirit as the original trilogy.

Live Free or Die Hard is trash, never let hackers be villains

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - better than the 4th indiana jones flick

o wait, shit, was thinking of at world's end. never saw on stranger tides. love the tim powers novel, though.

Alien: Resurrection: sucked.
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip: dunno
Barbershop: The Next Cut: didn't know it existed
Batman & Robin: pretty bad.
The Bourne Legacy: Even Renner forgot this existed.
Bride of Chucky: funny!
The Concorde ... Airport '79: dunno
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes: is this the one set on current earth, with time traveling apes?
Death Wish 4: The Crackdown: OTT bad/good.
Ernest Scared Stupid: dunno
Exorcist: The Beginning: mostly bad, with moments?
Fast & Furious: prolly OK.
The Final Destination: ridiculous
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter: I like this one!
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers: I don't like this one, but read the novelization
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: s'ok.
Hellraiser: Bloodline: bad
Highlander: Endgame: dunno, didn't know there were 4
Ice Age: Continental Drift: kid stuff
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: OK at the time, worse/bad on memory
Jaws: the Revenge: awful
Jurassic World: solid but stupid
Land of the Dead: bad on review but OK at the time
Lethal Weapon 4: drag
Live Free or Die Hard: bad
Meatballs 4: ? really?
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol: great
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor: didn't know it existed
The Next Karate Kid: didn't see
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master: solid, liked this
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides: overblown
Police Academy 4: Citizens On Patrol: used to watch it for Bones Brigade and Bobcat
Rambo: solid
Resident Evil: Afterlife: dunno
Rocky IV: cheese
Saw IV: depressing
Scary Movie 4: prolly terrible
Scream 4: think I walked out during the bad guy's "I did it because ... !" speech. Was the media the bad guy?
Shrek Forever After: huh, didn't know this existed.
Spy Kids: All The Time In The World: s'ok kid stuff
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace: epically bad
Step Up: Revolution: wow, there were 4?
Sudden Impact: OK, famous for the "go ahead, make my day!' quote, which like Jason's mask people forget came later
Superman IV: The Quest For Peace: saw this in theaters, terrible
Terminator Salvation: With Bale? I thought it was 30% OK.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation: dunno
Transformers: Age of Extinction: "like listening to a pile of rocks in a dryer." - Roger Ebert.
Underworld: Awakening: dunno
Vegas Vacation: can't be good.

Ernest Scared Stupid is an okay kid's movie, as I recall.

I'm holding my fire until the next Linklater Before movie.

It should be called "After B4"

Scream 4: think I walked out during the bad guy's "I did it because ... !" speech. Was the media the bad guy?

no emma roberts was the bad guy

she throws herself through a glass table, it's raw as hell

Critters 4 (1992) has several covers but this one got me hoping they'd beaten Wayne's World to the Bohemian Rhapsody performance pip.

http://i.yai.bz/Assets/91/282/l_p1005028291.jpg

funny how easy it is to pick out the lone good film on this list (Bride of Chucky)

"Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip" is surprisingly enjoyable given what it is (a terrible Alvin and the Chipmunks movie)

put that on the poster

'surprisingly enjoyable' raves ilx poster djp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lpNS3Jd37k

pesci was robbed of the best supporting actor oscar

I haven't seen some of these but it's hard to imagine any being worse than Jaws: the Revenge

Terminator Salvation is one of the worst movies I have ever seen in a movie theater.

The tolerable to actually good:

Bride of Chucky
The Concorde ... Airport '79
The Final Destination
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Land of the Dead
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
Step Up: Revolution

I suspect Crystal Skull will win this one, and already smh.

xp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0auwpvAU2YA
Christian Bale revealing what a loathsome tool he is on set was entertaining though.

oh and re: Batman & Robin's much-discussed rubber fetish shots: those are kinda among the better shots in the movie tbh. Most of the film alternates between lifeless talky scenes and flailing 'comic' action vomited up by the glow-in-the-dark action playset, which probably does play okay to eight-year-olds. It's at least more consistent in its ''the 60s show, but for the hyperactive 90s kid!'' vision than Batman Forever. Also I would rather watch Arnold hamming up dumb puns than Carrey sweating hard for a laugh that never comes. The internet obsessing over the crotch and butt shots feels idk kinda like teen nerd homophobery but I'll concede that it does certainly mark a huge difference from the Burton treatment so maybe that's why people are lingering on it.

Harry Potter I only left in here because it feels like it'd be glaringly missing from a list of major multi-multi-film series of the last while. I think it's a step down from Cuarón's work on the third, but it's also an accurate adaptation of the fourth book, which is structurally episodic and poorly-edited. So the movies stop trying to tell the whole story and count on the audience to fill in key stuff; I don't think of 'em come close to real badness, which is amazing since they could have been complete shit from day one and still made a fortune. IV is the one with Brendan Gleeson, David Tennant, and first Fiennes-as-Voldemort. The idea of sitting through the "three trials" stuff again is a little daunting but yeah this doesn't REALLY belong alongside Meatballs 4, etc.

I liked these (note: I don't think all of them are "good" per se, but I enjoyed watching them):

Alien: Resurrection
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip
The Bourne Legacy
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Ice Age: Continental Drift
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull <-- not even Shia Leboeuf swings with monkeys could ruin this for me*
Lethal Weapon 4
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
Resident Evil: Afterlife
Shrek Forever After
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Underworld: Awakening

* I was going to reword this but, no

no wait, shit, was thinking of at world's end. never saw on stranger tides. love the tim powers novel, though.

yeah on stranger tides automatically cannot be the worst because at least it represented a big payday for powers.

leaving out ones where i truly have no idea, or enough sense of the series to know whether i'd be pissed or indifferent if the fourth one suddenly started sucking:

ESSENTIALLY COMPETENT MOVIEMAKING, NO DISGRACE TO THE SERIES:

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - see above

OKAY AFTERNOON VIEWING ON CABLE, JUST DISAPPOINTINGLY INESSENTIAL AND ORDINARY:

Alien: Resurrection - see above
Jurassic World - see above
Rocky IV - tbh i've never watched the whole thing but i think it'd be down

JUST SHORT OF PASSABLE AFTERNOON VIEWING ON CABLE - LAME, DISGRACEFUL, AND SO DISTRACTINGLY LOUD, STUPID OR TONE-DEAF AS TO IMPEDE IDLE ENJOYMENT WITH A HANGOVER:

Batman & Robin - see above
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - just painfully ordinary and without personality, weight or momentum (except the p. good early Indy/Shia scenes where Spielberg clearly came in and took over for a while), but easier to forget than Star Wars and doesn't ruin Indy in the same way.

TRULY DIRE SLOGS:

Superman IV: The Quest For Peace - see above
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace - see nearly 3,000 posts in the crimes of george lucas thread

NO IDEA, BUT COULD IMAGINE THEM BEING HALF DECENT?

Barbershop: The Next Cut - no idea
The Bourne Legacy - zzz but probably at least competently made?
Bride of Chucky - sure
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes - always been weirdly curious about the very oddball-sounding premises of the later PotA movies.
Fast & Furious - i can't really tell the films in this series apart but people i respect say they actually start getting better as it goes on. dunno if it's 4 or 5 where that's supposed to happen though.
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol - everyone says this is great
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master - my sense is the sequels in this series are generally kinda consistent, it's just basically an anthology of weird dream horror sequences strung together by freddy right?
The Next Karate Kid - female karate kid is a nice idea and prob. inspired some kids idk
Rambo - actually probably awful
Spy Kids: All The Time In The World - loved the first and feel there are too few kids movies of this kind
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor - actually probably awful

HAVEN'T SEEN BUT MUST ASSUME THEY ARE LIKELY MORE PAINFUL TO WATCH THAN PHANTOM MENACE:

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip - can you imagine watching four movies of this shit
Death Wish 4: The Crackdown - Cannon Group rule
Ernest Scared Stupid - tho tbh I doubt it is much different from the previous couple. "Camp" is the only classic.
The Final Destination - should have called it "final final destination"
Hellraiser: Bloodline, Highlander: Endgame - should have been combined into one movie
Ice Age: Continental Drift - these are so fucking UGLY
Jaws: the Revenge - go-to symbol of old-school sequelitis
Lethal Weapon 4 - never watched any, but seems like the first is not my style and they all get worse. isn't this the one with the racism?
Live Free or Die Hard - i am 100% the target market of this film and i took one look at the trailer and went "nnnnope."
Meatballs 4 - first had a mild charm when not creepy/rapey, but why watch any sans Murray? here, corey feldman saves the camp in a water-skiing championship.
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - already wrecked by the second two dumb 'trilogy' pieces. imagining an even more broken ratio of depp's mugging to everything else... yikes.
Police Academy 4: Citizens On Patrol - i guess i've heard it's better than 5-7?
Saw IV - horrible series, suspect this is the least pleasant viewing experience of anything here
Scary Movie 4 - somehow worries me more than Scream 4
Shrek Forever After - hate this unfunny genre-wrecking shit, kids deserve better and i'm offended on their behalf
Terminator Salvation - third one already nailed the 'afternoon cable whatever' category, this just looked bleak and tiring
Transformers: Age of Extinction - what can you even say?
Vegas Vacation - even the first one, fourteen years earlier, was more cringey than funny for most of the time.

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip - can you imagine watching four movies of this shit

... what has happened to me and my life

the essential gayness of batman & robin rescues it for me in a way that i think the essential gayness of nightmare on elm street 2 rescues that movie for others

iirc the final destination is the worst final destination sequel but i get them all mixed up in my head

i would happily vote in that poll fwiw, there's a lot to choose from!

haha okay maybe i'll go through my notes and make that one happen too

the one fanservice omission that's really inexplicable in the prequels is that there's no cameo from the millennium falcon

strong possibility lucas forgot it existed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN8HTKLsKkU

I'm not sure that poll will be kind to your views of the two latest, Doctor C.

star wars prequels: most embarrassing and hacky attempt at fan-service and plot resolution

i listened to the How Did This Get Made? for Batman & Robin today. so many lolz, this movie is so terrible. perhaps the apex of the degradation in this film is the moment where Batman slides down the back of a dinosaur, literally like he is Fred Flintstone at the start of an episode of the Flintstones. holy shit, this is a thing that happened in this movie.

then i found this. lol, perfect:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc2Pc2gbXDQ

Meatballs 4 actually has a post-credit scene where Corey Feldman gets dumped by a girl and complains "I was in Goonies!"

And yes I did watch this poo

worthy of remembrance:

the entire Ice Age run is just a McDonald's Happy Meal promotion that got above itself

― Pengest & Corsa (Noodle Vague)

i still hold that view but the series did give us Nicki Minaj saying "she's a mammoth, of course" so it isn't completely worthless

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jRu_fv2_6A

is NOES 4 good?

Texas Chainsaw Massacre 4 might be one of the worst movies I've ever seen. I think if more people had seen it, they would agree. I watched it on late night cable while insanely baked with a friend of mine in 1999.

Matthew McCoughnahey!

is NOES 4 good?

― Gardyloominati (Neanderthal), Monday, October 25, 2021 3:04 PM (seventeen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

some people love it, and it has some of the most adventurous dream sequences of the series

i kinda hate it and like it

It was screened and shelved before McConaughey and Renee Zellweger were huge stars, then re-cut and re-released with a different name once they became famous.

It is...abysmal.

my brother is the person in this video getting disemboweled: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tTnm2hDVJU

the video gets shown throughout the park which is cool.

but because of his 30 seconds of fame here, he watched all of the TCM movies in the entire franchise in like a week. (dude isn't even a horror buff). he said he saw some "shit", and mentioned 4 as the nadir

he is the good actor in the family, I on the other hand am the "utility infielder of theatre"

i'm actually going to watch tcm 3 during my halloween marathon. hyped. viggo!

turner classic massacres

is NOES 4 good?

is there a newer lunch willing to back up what this lunch has said