Take 4: Return of Attack of the Sequels

Several months back, I did a review on lesser-known movie sequels that probably never should have seen the light of day. While the movies were hardly top-notch, it still can be pretty amusing watching some deluded soul try to breathe life into a movie franchise that would best be left alone. Now, having already covered some pretty bad "Part Two's," I decided to throw caution to the wind and look at some potentially terrible "Part Three's." Sorry...just couldn't help myself.

Recommended Reading: Take 4 - Attack of the Sequels

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Major League: Back to the Minors (1998)

Double Flashback: Back in the first Major League, the owner of the Cleveland Indians pieced together a horrible team of misfit ballplayers, with the hope that they'd have a terrible season and that season attendance would drop below 800,000...which is the only escape clause that would let her move the team to a warmer climate (she hates Cleveland). The players find out about the scheme...and start winning, just to spite her and her plans. In the sequel, Major League II, the Indians now have their eyes on the World Series. They came close the previous year, losing to the Chicago White Sox in the American League championship series, and soon find themselves back in the same position...on the road to the World Series, with only the White Sox in their way.

Third Time's a Charm: Now, we're no longer focusing on the Indians...we're with a Minor League team, the Salt Lake City Buzz. And you've got the same basic line-up of misfit players, this time including twin brothers Juan and Juan, former ballet dance Lance, and "Doc," who throws the slowest fastball in professional baseball. Gus Cantrell, a minor league pitcher close to retiring, is brought in by the owner of the Buzz, Roger Dorn (who was in the first two Major League films) to manage the team. Dorn also owns the Minnesota Twins, and Cantrell soon gets into it with the Twins manager, Leonard Huff, which leads to gauntlets being thrown and the two teams clashing in a major league/minor league battle on the baseball diamond...with reputations and jobs on the line.

Familiar Faces: Cantrell is played by Scott Bakula, of Quantum Leap fame. You've also got folks from the previous Major League films, including Corbin Bernsen (who plays the aforementioned Dorn) and Dennis Haysbert (David Palmer from 24), who plays Pedro Cerrano, the voodoo practitioner turned Buddhist. Finally you'll recognize Bob Uecker (as Harry Doyle, the sports announcer) and Ted McGinley (who has caused many a television show to "jump the shark").

And I Quote: Hog Ellis: "Hold it right there! This here is a hundred mile hour fast ball. One of the best pitches known to man today. If it were to hit you, it would've knocked your head clean off. I can always miss, but I've been playing pretty good today, so you gotta ask yourself one question." Carlos Liston: "Do I feel lucky?" Hog Ellis: "Well, do you Carlos?"

Random Trivia: In Roger Dorn's Minnesota Twins owner suite, a number 4 Lou Collins jersey hangs in a case, a reference to Timothy Busfield's character in Little Big League.

Curt's Take: Not a Priority - Well, it wasn't so bad that you should avoid it, but it wasn't so great that you should actively seek it out. There's almost certainly something else you should be watching. It's basically your standard "Group of Misfits Gets Their Act Together" story, and the original Bad News Bears was much more entertaining. You can pretty much stop after you see the first Major League, but if nothing else is on TV, and you stumble across this (and it's raining outside), I guess it's permissable to not immediately flip the channel.

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Dracula III: Legacy (2005)

Double Flashback: In Dracula 2000, the first film of this trilogy, a group of art thieves break into a subterranean chamber expecting to find some valuable antiquities, but instead find Dracula's body, held in a sort of stasis, and unleash him back upon the world. At the end, his true origins are revealed, and he is killed. In the sequel, Dracula II: The Ascension, which I reviewed quite a ways back, a researcher and his assistants steal Dracula's corpse for medical research. The corpse gets a little blood on it, Dracula comes back to life, and the cast is cut down, one by one. Also, a long-haired Asian priest appears on the scene to stop Dracula...but not really sure where he came from. The film ends suddenly with Dracula escaping, having just bitten the priest and leaving him for dead. Or undead...whatever.

Third Time's a Charm: Picking up almost exactly from where Dracula II leaves off, the priest (now partially a vampire, a la Blade) and one of the surviving research assistants head to Romania to track down Dracula...and one of the lovely female research assistants Dracula bit in the last movie. They are joined by a British television journalist, who was there covering the Romanian rebel uprising for her network. The trio get deeper and deeper into the mountains and myths of Romania, steadily nearing Dracula's hideout and a pretty bland ending.

Familiar Faces: Jason Scott Lee (who plays the priest, Father Uffizi), also played Mowgli in the live-action adaptation of The Jungle Book, as well as Bruce Lee in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story. Luke, his research assistant buddy, is played by Jason London (twin brother of Jeremy London), who was in Dazed and Confused. Two bigger names, however, include Roy "We're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat" Scheider (who appears for a good 90 seconds on-screen as Uffizi's blind priest mentor, Cardinal Siqueros) and Rutger "I'm Rutger Hauer" Hauer, who plays Dracula.

And I Quote: Luke: "Uffizi." Father Uffizi: "What?" Luke: "You don't really look like an Uffizi. How did you get a name like that anyway?" Father Uffizi: "Came with the job." Luke: "So, like, if I get the same job, I get a cool name like that?"

Random Trivia: Dracula II and this movie were shot together as one movie. It was the director's and producers' intention to split the film into two during the shooting. Finding this out made a lot of sense to me, as I felt that Dracula II ended rather strangely and abruptly. However, Dracula is played by three different actors over the course of the trilogy (Gerard Butler, of 300 fame; Stephen Billington; and Rutger Hauer), so that part still confuses me.

Curt's Take: Don't Bother - So, it was a step up from Dracula II...which isn't saying much. The first half hour was pretty boring, the second half hour was a halfway decent action flick, and the last half hour was rushed and didn't make sense. When you've got a different actor playing the same character across three films of a trilogy, that's a huge red flag that something's wrong. The Romanian landscape is nice to look at, though, and there's a fun little fight scene with a vampire clown on stilts (don't ask), but other than that, there's plenty of great flicks out there you should catch instead.

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The Skulls III (2003)

Double Flashback: In The Skulls, a rough-around-the-edges student from the wrong side of the tracks works his way into an Ivy League school, and vies for a spot in its prestigious secret society, The Skulls. He hopes the influential group will help him gain entrance into Harvard Law School. He uncovers some sinister deeds, however, and when his best friend (a journalism student) apparently commits suicide, our hero vows to uncover the secrets of this society before they get away with further misdeeds. Not too long after, in The Skulls II, two more down-and-out students are on the path to being inducted into The Skulls, when they witness a murder on Skulls property...with a Skulls member performing the heinous deed. The power of the society kicks in, and the murder is covered up, but the new inductees strive to bring the truth to light.

Third Time's a Charm: Not to be disbanded simply because of the acts of a few bad apples, The Skulls face another year of recruiting in The Skulls III. This time, young Taylor Brooks takes issue with the fact that her boyfriend is trying to get into The Skulls, and that women are not permitted to try. She looks through the campus by-laws, and finds a loophole that states that The Skulls, whose house is located on university property, must allow women access to their society. She becomes inducted...but another murder rears its ugly head, and she is the main suspect. Will Taylor be able to clear her name and uncover the true culprit?

Familiar Faces: The only person I recognized was Barry Bostwick, who has had major and minor movie, television, and stage appearances for decades, including Spin City, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and the original stage production of Grease, where he played the first Danny Zuko.

And I Quote: Roger Lloyd: "Stand up. Shed the last symbols of your old life. Remove your clothes." Nathan Lloyd: "Stand up! Hesitate and you'll never see this place again." Taylor Brooks: "All right, boys. You heard the man. No time to be shy."

Random Trivia: The end of the movie is all about the search for the computer that supposedly has the IP address from which a fake email has been sent. Exciting, no? But no computer in the world has its own IP address. It just gets it from the network connection it has at the time. A laptop connects to the Internet at home and gets an IP address, but if the same computer connects at the campus the IP will be another one. Besides, most networks uses dynamic IP's, making the error even bigger.

Curt's Take: Not a Priority - It was a little slow at first, but I found myself actually interested in what the wrap-up of the story would be...even though I predicted it an hour before the closing credits. I guess the point of the trilogy is that "absolute power corrupts absolutely," or that "secret societies don't kill people, secret society members kill people" or something like that. I mean, do they make movies about the perfectly well-adjusted secret society members who go through life, doing good, and spreading sunshine and happiness? Of course not. But I found myself asking why the heck The Skulls were still allowed to be in existance throughout this trilogy, and that's the only answer I could come up with.

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I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer (2006)

Note: I'm not making this one up. Just had to say it.

Double Flashback: In the original I Know What You Did Last Summer, four teens celebrating their high school graduation accidentally run down a stranger on a seaside road. They throw his body in the water, but are then haunted a year later by mysterious threats...and a rising body count, thanks to a mysterious hook-wielding figure dressed in a fisherman's slicker. The sequel, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (I really love these titles), sees the surviving teens and their friends heading to a tropical island resort after one of them wins a radio contest. Things go terribly wrong when a storm hits the island, people start disappearing left and right...and mysterious threats to start to appear all over again. Oh...and the fisherman appears, too.

Third Time's a Charm: In the third installment of the series, a completely different group of teens is in trouble. The "revenge-seeking fisherman" from the first two films has become an urban legend of sorts, and stories abound of the mysterious figure who turns up to slay teenagers who carry deep, dark secrets. A group of friends plots a Fourth of July prank in which one of them dresses up as the fisherman of lore, chasing people around the local holiday festivities. The joke turns deadly, however, when one their peer group accidentally dies during the hijinks. They cover up their involvement...and the folks who are in-the-know start to die off one by one a year later at the hands of a mysterious rain-slicked figure with a hook.

Familiar Faces: Um...nobody. Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr, who appear in both of the first two installments are absent in this complete departure from the series.

And I Quote: Amber: "Zoe, did you tell anyone?" Zoe: "Yeah, I wrote a song about it."

Random Trivia: The movie was announced in 2000, and was originally meant to star Jennifer Love Hewitt, Brandy and Freddie Prinze Jr. again. However, the movie was left alone for a while and the original script, which involved Jennifer, Brandy and Freddie, was scrapped and a whole new script was written. Despite the script being scrapped, Hewitt was rumored to have a cameo appearance in the new movie, but never made it.

Curt's Take: Run in Fear - No, not because it's scary. Because it's terrible. This will come as a surprise to those of you who know me as one of the butts in the seats of the theater during the opening night of any horror movie that is released. But this movie lost me in the last fifteen minutes by breaking what I felt was a sacred contract between the film and the viewer. One of the reasons I enjoy movies like this (the Scream series is a particularly good example) is that I love the mystery aspect...trying to figure out who the killer is up until the moment he/she is revealed. And this one had me going for quite a bit...my suspects were dying off one-by-one until I had no clue. And then it's revealed...the killer isn't even human, it's the spirit/demonic embodiment of the urban legend, come to life. And he has to be killed by a hook. Note the lack of a spoiler alert...I'm doing this for your own good. Suddenly we're in Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street territory, and I'm not a happy camper. So, I just suffered through the last fifteen minutes, took the DVD out, and shipped it back to Netflix. Argh. Avoid this at all costs.