The 10 worst movie sequels of all time, ranked

Sometimes, a terrible sequel can be almost so bad that it’s enjoyable, and Age of Extinction almost gets there. Unfortunately, this soft reboot of the franchise that features a new roster of human characters is too long and digressive to be any fun on a rewatch.

The action in this Michael Bay sequel is turgid and impossible to follow, and Mark Wahlberg is horribly cast as a small-time inventor. The movie, which is also loaded with product placement, made plenty of money, and was not the final nail in this franchise’s coffin, even if it probably should have been.

Another sequel delayed entirely too long to be relevant, Zoolander 2 is terrible in all the ways that the original manages to avoid. The idea of Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson playing vain models being forced to deal with their own irrelevance was one worth pursuing, but basically every decision they made was the wrong one. The first Zoolander was a smart look at what had happened to the fashion industry. Its sequel is basically just two old men yelling at clouds for two hours.

Most of these movies are bad enough that you want to study them, but The Sting II is so bad, and so boring, that forgetting it completely is the only acceptable course of action. The first Sting won Best Picture, and cemented Robert Redford and Paul Newman as one of the iconic movie duos in cinema history.

Its sequel proved just how rare the magic of that first film was, but in the most uninteresting way possible. The plotting is bad, the performances are rough, and the whole thing feels entirely uninspired from the jump.

How do you make a Blues Brothers movie without John Belushi? Not well, apparently. Blues Brothers 2000 at least features some solid music, but nothing else about the movie is able to re-capture what made the first film so special.

Elwood’s sidekick is as terrible as every other kid sidekick you’ve ever seen in a movie, and most of the jokes don’t really land either. John Belushi’s death should have made any future Blues Brothers movies impossible, but Dan Aykroyd and company insisted on trying anyway.

Sharon Stone created an iconic character in Basic Instinct, and she brings much of that same raw sex appeal to the sequel. Unfortunately, the rest of Basic Instinct 2 is far too canned and corny to keep up with her.

Instead of a compelling Michael Douglas, Stone’s Catherine is now facing off against the much less interesting David Morrissey. She puts in a truly Herculean effort to make the movie the least bit compelling, but she doesn’t come close to saving a project that seems doomed from the moment anyone suggested they make it.