5 Sequels That Took A Perfect Franchise And Set It On Fire

Highlander II: The Quickening — The Sequel So Bad The Franchise Pretended It Never Happened

The original Highlander landed a respectable <cite index="11-1">70% Tomatometer</cite> score and built a cult following almost entirely on home video. Then Highlander II showed up with aliens, hoverboards, and a plot critics couldn't even follow, cratering to <cite index="8-1,8-2">a Rotten Tomatoes score of 0%, scoring 31 out of 100 on Metacritic</cite>. Roger Ebert's review said it best, calling it <cite index="8-25">"the most hilariously incomprehensible movie I've seen in many a long day — a movie almost awesome in its badness"</cite> — and the backlash was so total that <cite index="8-19">the following film, Highlander III: The Sorcerer, ignores the events of Highlander II</cite> entirely, wiping it from canon like a bad dream.

Terminator Genisys — The Reboot That Time-Traveled Back To Ruin Its Own Legend

Terminator 2: Judgment Day is untouchable, sitting at <cite index="69-3">a 90% approval rating from the aggregated reviews of 156 critics, with an average score of 8.5/10</cite>. Genisys tried to reboot that magic with a timeline-scrambling retcon and instead ranked dead last in the franchise, with critics saying <cite index="34-2">"the Terminator franchise has forgotten what made The Terminator and Terminator 2 so great"</cite> and that it feels like it's <cite index="34-27">"gone back in time to murder our memories of the ancestral first film and crush the series' reputation"</cite>. Metacritic user reviews piled on too, with one flatly calling it <cite index="33-18,33-19">"confusing, convoluted and pointless. Easily the worst Terminator film to date"</cite>.

The Matrix Revolutions — The Trilogy Ender That Left Everyone Unplugged

The original Matrix redefined action cinema and holds a stellar 88% on Rotten Tomatoes, but its trilogy-closer Revolutions collapsed to just <cite index="61-3">an abysmal 35 percent on Rotten Tomatoes</cite>. Metacritic's consensus was brutal, with one reviewer asking <cite index="60-2">"the death penalty seems a little strong, but can we lock this franchise up and forget where we put the key?"</cite> Fans piled on too, with plenty of reviews calling it <cite index="26-18">"a flashy but hollow wrap-up that leaves the trilogy limping over the finish line"</cite> — and some flatly admitting <cite index="26-11">"this is the worst of the matrix movies"</cite> they'd seen.

Jurassic World: Dominion — The Finale That Made Fans Miss The Dinosaurs More Than The Plot

Steven Spielberg's original still holds up with <cite index="42-8">a 92 percent</cite> critic score, but the trilogy-capping Dominion nosedived to <cite index="42-7">a Rotten Tomatoes score of 30 percent, lower than any other Jurassic Park or Jurassic World movie</cite>. One top critic put it bluntly: <cite index="43-1">"Colin Trevorrow is the worst thing that's happened to dinosaurs since that asteroid knocked them all into the past tense"</cite>, while another called it <cite index="39-19">"the final entry into a trilogy that, at no point, ever knew what it was doing"</cite>. Weirdly, <cite index="42-13">Jurassic World: Dominion is the only time in the franchise where the audience score has been drastically higher than the critic score</cite> — proof that even the fans who showed up anyway knew something was off.

Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull — The Movie That Got Punished More In Legend Than On Paper

Here's the twist: Crystal Skull actually opened to <cite index="22-1,22-2">77% of 307 critic reviews positive with an average rating of 7/10, and a Metacritic score of 65 out of 100</cite>, decent numbers by any measure. But the fridge-nuking scene became such a cultural punching bag that <cite index="21-4,21-5">since its release, the film has been a punchline, with the term "nuke the fridge" replacing "jump the shark" in the vernacular</cite>, a phrase so viral it landed on <cite index="22-66,22-67">Time magazine's list of "top ten buzzwords" of 2008</cite>. The reappraisal has been messy ever since, with some critics now insisting it's underrated while others, revisiting it years later, admit it <cite index="22-42">"feels like a missed opportunity"</cite>.