They’ve all been championed as some of the best of their genre but are these bloated and overlong sequels really that good?
I love event cinema, especially when it’s good and in recent years, although we’ve seen an increasingly mediocre output from Disney and Marvel, we’ve still seen some pretty great blockbuster cinema. Top Gun: Maverick was delectably delivered simplicity, pumped full of warming nostalgia and boosted by thrilling set pieces. It was the first cinema film in well over a decade that I saw twice on the big screen. An all-time great? One of the best action movies ever? Certainly not, and the film was indeed treated to such overly generous hyperbole.
However, there have been three grand spectaculars hitting the big screen since which have all received rave reviews from critics and fans alike. Now, I’ll preface all the following by stating that all of them were enjoyable, especially as a big screen escape. All but one of these delivered franchise best ratings and the one that didn’t basically hit par with a predecessor that to me was significantly better in every aspect.
The first of these was John Wick: Chapter 4. With a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 94% and IMDb score of 7.7 it’s on paper, the best in the Wick franchise. Really? Look, I love Baba Yaga. Keanu Reeves as the titular assassin has been a revelation for action cinema with the franchise proving to be a huge inspiration for the innumerable imitators who copy gun-fu, the judo-heavy MMA choreography and the visual aesthetics (not to mention the evergreen vengeful assassin plotline).
For me, the franchise began with the most heart in the original film but saw a brilliant escalation in stakes and world-building in the first two sequels, culminating in the third part which felt grand in comparison to previous instalments. Even Part 3 was way heftier in the run time department than it needed to be, in an era where genre cinema is prone to such indulgence. The fourth chapter though, hits a run time that’s beyond excessive. Wick’s misadventures haven’t been lithe since the original but given the expansive and growing world, it initially felt necessary. By four films in though, with a repeating set of goals, you begin to retread too much old ground.
Additionally, the film segues into too many unnecessary subplots with too many superfluous characters. In fact, dare I say, although I enjoyed Wick 4, Donnie Yen’s presence does a huge amount of heavy lifting to keep things interesting and although the arduously frantic nature of the action is intentional, for the first time it was becoming exhausting for me. The film was almost an hour too long.
Many reviews proudly exclaimed it as being one of the best action films of the past decade and in some cases, even a film worthy of being in the pantheon of the genre. For me though, Jonathan Wick has succumbed to the law of diminishing returns and Chapter 4 is the weakest of the franchise.
A few months later, Tom Cruise released the latest instalment of Mission: Impossible. The franchise had really kicked up to a new level with the fourth film (Ghost Protocol) and peaked with a great seventh (Fallout)so expectations were sky-high for Dead Reckoning. The classic Maguffin hunt, for Ethan Hunt is nothing new but by this point, recycling the same plot for seven movies should conceivably mean we eventually get franchise burnout. It hasn’t happened if the critical consensus is anything to go by.
Dead Reckoning: Part One stormed out with a dazzling 96% score on Rotten Tomatoes (one per cent less than Fallout) and an IMDB score of 7.7 (matching Fallout). Additionally, in almost every other metric, be it Amazon, Letterboxd or dodgy Dave’s ratings accompanying the box of DVD-Rs out the back of his van, the seventh instalment was one of, if not the best in the franchise and indeed another that should have a seat in action Valhalla.
To be honest, though, this is a huge mess that meanders all the way through to its admittedly spectacular finale. As good as the set pieces are, as has become almost a given with Cruise, there’s nothing here that matches the Burj Khalifa set piece, or the skydive sequence and no fight sequence as good as Cruise and Cavill’s bathroom brawl in Fallout.
Cruise is always sincere and always a stellar hero, but Hunt is running through the motions here. He’s dealing with repeating arcs and overcoming the same obstacles each time. This might well be top tier as far as the past decade, but that’s really just a consequence of the action genre rarely hitting such heights as we’ve seen in the 20th century. I’ll give you a seven out of ten at best for it, and likewise for John Wick 4.
However, both of these pale in comparison to the adoration heaped upon Dune: Part Two. I was never into the Herbert novels. How accurate an adaptation is, would be lost on me but it’s long been felt Dune is almost impossible to successfully adapt to the screen. Sci-fi can be such an acquired taste too, and with these films so distinctly sci-fi (particularly compared Star Wars for example), it amazes me just how widely loved Denis Villenueve’s Dune films have been. They’re incredibly dry and not because they’re set almost entirely in desert landscapes.
David Lynch has always been an acquired taste and his version of Dune, arguably one of his most accessible films, was greeted with mixed reviews, not least from Herbert fans who felt he didn’t do justice or treat the story with enough reverence.
To me, Denis Villenueve can almost do no wrong. I’ve loved almost everything he’s done. I enjoyed Dune, in spite of it leaving me a little cold but the world-building was impressive and there were interesting character arcs. Being effectively a first act, the film of course ended somewhat abruptly with more unanswered questions than not, but the critics and fans’ response to the sequel suggested we were witnessing the greatest genre sequel since The Empire Strikes Back. It didn’t click with me though, even less so than the original. Despite a 92% critics score (and 95% fan rating) on Rotten Tomatoes, as well as a heady placement as the 19th best film ever by IMDB voters, this one left me even cold.
Florence Pugh narrates at the beginning of a film that will leave anyone who hasn’t seen the first, scratching their head. After her narration she barely appears and does next to nothing besides pontificate on the ramifications of some of the power plays in the film (which I won’t spoil). It sets the tone though as many other characters played by big stars flit in and out without really offering a great deal, including Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem and Dave Bautista.
Despite the film being so heavily centred on Paul Atreides’ (Timothee Chalamet) journey, it doesn’t feel like his journey amounts to much and certainly meanders in an excess of middle-distance staring and indecision. We’re introduced to a villain many were talking of in the same breath as Darth Vader, played by Austin Butler, who again doesn’t really do a great deal between his bookend fight sequences, aside from snarl (with admittedly, plenty of conviction).
It’s Denis, so the film does look gorgeous and there’s a good amount of spectacle (not least with the intermittent appearances of sandworms) but if a sparsity of action sequences seemed to affect the first film, it feels even more evident in the sequel. Many of the revelations, twists, and goals felt either thrown in or glossed over and for what is essentially a revenge tale, running parallel with accepting one’s destiny, it all takes too long.
Despite all this though, Dune: Part Two did seem to breeze by and wasn’t a chore but for all that is Holy, this is by a million miles, not the 19th greatest film of all time. If one were to take much notice of IMDb’s often questionable rating system of course.
What did you think of Dune: Part Two, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning and John Wick: Chapter 4? What do you think is a really overrated film? Drop us a comment on our social channels @FlickeringMyth or hit me up on Instagram @JolliffeProductions…
