star trek russian actor

Anton Yelchin's tragic accident as he was crushed to death by his own car

Rocketed into the world of fame in the 2000s, Anton Yelchin became famous for his acting in the Star Trek reboot franchise films - and this week marks the fourth anniversary of his tragic death

• 21:00, 19 Jun 2020
• Updated 21:29, 19 Jun 2020

It's been four years since Star Trek's Anton Yelchin was killed in a tragic accident.

Rocketed into the world of fame in the 2000s, the TV star became famous for his acting in the Star Trek reboot franchise films.

Anton took on Walter Koenig's original role as Pavel Chekov in the Star Trek reboot films.

The actor died aged 27 when he was crushed to death by his own car outside his home in Los Angeles on June 20, 2016.

His car killed him when it rolled backwards down a steep drive.

Star Trek's Anton died when he became trapped against a brick postbox pillar and a security fence.

Before the terrible accident, he had plans to meet his friends.

He was found dead by his pals after he failed to turn up for a rehearsal, according to Los Angeles police.

The third Star Trek rebooted film he starred in was released one month after his tragic death.

Its third instalment in the summer of 2016 followed the first two films in 2009 and 2013.

During his brief yet successful acting career, the TV star landed his first screen role in US drama ER in 2000.

His breakout role followed in 2006 in Alpha Dog before he landed the part on the rebooted Star Trek franchise.

Anton was born to celebrated Russian figure skaters Victor and Irina Yelchin.

Tributes flooded social media at the time of his death including directors and actors who had worked closely with him.

At the time, Star Trek Beyond director Justin Lin said: "Still in shock. Rest in peace, Anton. Your passion and enthusiasm will live on with everyone that had the pleasure of knowing you."

His co-star Zachary Quinto, who played Spock in the films, penned some kind words.

He wrote: "Our dear friend. Our comrade. Our Anton.

"One of the most open and intellectually curious people I have ever had the pleasure to know. So enormously talented and generous of heart. Wise beyond his years. And gone before his time. All love and strength to his family at this impossible time of grief."

In recent weeks, Anton's co-star Simon Pegg revealed losing the actor meant it's unlikely they will do a fourth film.

Simon lamented his death was a "real blow" to the Star Trek cast and dampened their enthusiasm for another movie.

He told Collider : "One thing I did mention when I spoke about it recently is that for us, losing Anton Yelchin the way we did was a real blow.

"And I think it slightly took the wind out of our sails in terms of our enthusiasm to do another one, just because we’re now missing one of our family. He would be conspicuous by his absence."

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Anton Yelchin, new Star Trek's Chekov, dies in freak accident

The 27-year-old, who played Chekov in the Star Trek reboot films, dies after being pinned by his own car.

• Ed was a member of the CNET crew that won a National Magazine Award from the American Society of Magazine Editors for general excellence online. He's also edited pieces that've nabbed prizes from the Society of Professional Journalists and others.

Anton Yelchin, aka Star Trek's Pavel Chekov, arrives on the red carpet at the LA premiere of "Star Trek" in 2009. The actor died on Sunday.

Anton Yelchin, the actor known for playing Chekov in the recent series of Star Trek reboot films, died in a freak accident in Los Angeles early Sunday morning.

Left to right: Yelchin as Chekov, Chris Pine as Kirk, John Cho as Sulu.

Yelchin, 27, was killed when his

Friends found Yelchin after he failed to show up for a scheduled rehearsal, Houser said.

The Russian-born actor played Pavel Chekov in 2009's " Star Trek " and 2013's "Star Trek Into Darkness," as well as in " Star Trek Beyond ," due out later this year.

Yelchin's Star Trek colleagues took to Twitter on Sunday to express their sorrow, including actors John Cho and Zachary Quinto, who play Sulu and Spock, respectively, "Star Trek Beyond" director Justin Lin and "Star Trek" and "Star Trek Into Darkness" director J.J. Abrams (by way of his production company, Bad Robot):

Update, 12:23 p.m. PT: Adds information from the LAPD; adds Cho's tweet. 12:42: Adds tweets from Lin and Quinto. 1:30: Adds Bad Robot tweet of J.J. Abrams' note.

AIR & SPACE MAGAZINE

Star trek ’s anton yelchin killed in bizarre car accident.

The 27-year-old actor played Pavel Chekov in three films, including the forthcoming Star Trek Beyond.

Anton Yelchin, a versatile and respected 27-year-old actor whose professional figure-skater parents brought him to the United States from St. Petersburg, Russia as an infant, was found dead at his Studio City home early Sunday morning. According to Los Angeles police officer Jenny Hosier (as reported by the Associated Press ), the actor was found pinned between his car and a brick mailbox after the vehicle apparently rolled into him. Members of his band found him around 1 a.m., apparently having come to check on him after he failed to turn up for a scheduled practice Saturday evening.

While the actor had built a diverse resume, performing in commercial films and in arthouse releases like the brooding vampire film  Only Lovers Left Alive,  he was most widely known for playing Pavel Chekov in the rebooted  Star Trek  movie franchise. He had already completed filming his third appearance as the earnest young Russian Starfleet officer in  Star Trek Beyond ,  which will be released on July 22. (Walter Koenig originated the role of Chekov, playing the character in two seasons of the original  Star Trek  TV series as well as in six feature films, circa 1979-1991.)

Besides the upcoming Star Trek feature, Yelchin appeared in at least three other films set for release this year and next. In April, Yelchin earned admiring notices for his role in the tense thriller Green Room. He played a member of a struggling punk band that must escape a rock club run by a violent gang of white supremacists after witnessing a murder. Coincidentally, Patrick Stewart, another actor whose career got a big boost from Star Trek —he played Captain Jean-Luc Picard The Next Generation TV and film series over a 15-year period—was cast opposite Yelchin as the leader of the gang.

A number of  Star Trek  creators and cast members expressed their grief as the news of Yelchin’s passing was reported yesterday. J.J. Abrams, who directed Yelchin in 2009’s Star Trek and in its 2013 follow-up Star Trek into Darkness, released a photo of a handwritten note that read:

Anton — You were brilliant. You were kind. You were funny as hell, and supremely talented. And you weren’t here nearly long enough. Missing you…                                                                                                                                                          JJ

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The Tragic Death Of Anton Yelchin

At only 27 years old , actor Anton Yelchin died in a freak accident in his own driveway in Los Angeles in June 2016. He found himself pinned between a pillar and a fence after his car started rolling backward, according to BBC News . It appeared that Yelchin had gotten out of the vehicle, but had not put the car into park correctly (via CBS News ). The Los Angeles County coroner's office determined that cause of death was "blunt traumatic asphyxia." The young performer, known for such films as 2009's " Star Trek ," was basically crushed to death by his own car.

Born on March 11, 1989, in what is now St. Petersburg, Russia, Yelchin had begun his career with small roles in such TV shows as "ER" and "The Practice" when he was only a child (via  People magazine). He eventually graduated to more substantial projects, including a leading role in 2007's "Charlie Bartlett." Yelchin soon landed his most high-profile part, bringing his own take to the part of Pavel Chekov in J.J. Abrams' revival of "Star Trek." After Yelchin's death, Abrams took to Twitter to remember the actor, tweeting "You were kind. You were funny as hell, and supremely talented. And you weren't here nearly long enough" (via BBC ).

Anton Yelchin's death led to a lawsuit

Questions quickly rose up about Yelchin's vehicle, a 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Apparently, the 2014 and 2015 models of this car had been involved in numerous accidents as its "e-shift" feature made it hard for drivers to tell whether they had put their cars into park or not (via CBS News ). Victor and Irina Yelchin, the distraught parents of the young actor, pursued legal action against Fiat Chrysler, the company that manufactured the Jeep Grand Cherokee, according to an Associated Press report (via USA Today ). "In spite of our unbelievable grief, we decided to come here to prevent other families from the same tragedy," Victor Yelchin said. The Yelchins reached a settlement with the carmaker in 2018.

Yelchin's final appearance as Pavel Chekov was in 2016's "Star Trek Beyond," which premiered not long after his fatal accident. He had several more films released after his death, including the 2017 independent drama "Thoroughbreds" and the 2017 mystery "We Don't Belong Here." Fans also got to see another side to the late performer. He had several posthumous exhibitions of his photography, including a show at the De Buck Gallery in New York City (via W magazine). According to his official website , Yelchin said that "I was drawn to photography as an extension of film, and the beauty of film is that it's a sensuous, fetishistic medium." A collection of his photography has been published as the 2019 book "In Case of Fire."

Anton Yelchin

• Born March 11 , 1989 · Leningrad, Russian SFSR, USSR [now St. Petersburg, Russia]
• Died June 19 , 2016 · Studio City, California, USA (blunt traumatic asphyxia)
• Birth name Anton Viktorovich Yelchin
• Height 5′ 9″ (1.75 m)
• Anton Yelchin was an American actor, known for playing Bobby in Hearts in Atlantis (2001) , Chekov in the Star Trek (2009) reboot, Charlie Brewster in the Fright Night (2011) remake, and Jacob in Like Crazy (2011) . He was born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia, USSR, to a Jewish family. His parents, Irina Korina and Viktor Yelchin, were a successful pair of professional figure skaters in Leningrad, and his grandfather was also a professional sportsman, a soccer player. Anton was a six-month-old baby when he immigrated to the United States, where his parents settled in California and eventually developed coaching careers. He demonstrated his strong personality from the early age of four, and declined his parents' tutelage in figure skating because he was fond of acting and knew exactly what he wanted to do in his life. Yelchin attended acting classes in Los Angeles, and eventually was noticed by casting agents. In 2000, at the age of 10, he made his debut on television, appearing as Robbie Edelstein in the medical drama ER (1994) . At the age of 11, he shot to fame as Bobby Garfield, co-starring opposite Anthony Hopkins in Hearts in Atlantis (2001) , and earning himself the 2002 Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a Feature Film as Leading Young Actor. Over the course of his acting career, Yelchin has already played roles in more than 20 feature films and television productions, including Pavel Chekov in the hugely successful reboot Star Trek (2009) , and its sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) . Outside of his acting profession, Anton loved reading, and was also fond of playing chess. He wrote music and performed with a band, where he also played piano and guitar. Anton lived in Los Angeles, California, until his death on the evening of June 19, 2016, outside his LA home, when his parked Jeep Grand Cherokee rolled backward on his steep driveway, pinning him against a brick pillar and security fence. This was due to badly designed shifter that indicated park when it was in neutral. This death, along with reports of other near-misses, resulted in a recall of that model. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Steve Shelokhonov
• Children No Children
• Parents Irina Korina Viktor Yelchin
• Relatives Eugene Yelchin (Aunt or Uncle)
• Distinctive hoarse voice
• Sparkling green eyes
• Curly brown hair
• The 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee that rolled into him was part of a 2016 recall for that exact same issue. Incredibly, the recall notice was mailed to Yelchin seven days after his untimely death.
• The producers of Star Trek said that the role of Pavel Chekov would not be recast and the character would be written out of any following movies. Star Trek Beyond (2016) was dedicated to his memory.
• The only child of Viktor Yelchin and Irina Korina, Anton's parents are still involved in figure skating. The family emigrated to the United States from Russia when he was six months old. His father is a coach in California and his mother, Irina, is a figure skating choreographer. His parents and Viktor Yelchin and Irina Yelchin , were both well-known figure skaters in the Soviet Union, considered national celebrities as stars of the Leningrad Ice Ballet for 15 years. The two qualified for the 1972 Winter Olympics but were not permitted to participate by the Soviet authorities. Anton had said, "I don't exactly know what that was - because they were Jewish or because the KGB didn't want them to travel".
• In October 2017, a bronze statue of Anton Yelchin was erected at his grave in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Celebrities present at the unveiling ceremony included Jennifer Lawrence , Zoe Saldana , J.J. Abrams , Emile Hirsch , Demi Moore , Jon Voight , Drake Doremus , and Jeremy Saulnier .
• Smurfs: The Lost Village (2017) was dedicated to his memory, as he had provided the voice of Clumsy Smurf in the live-action Smurfs films. Additionally, We Don't Belong Here (2017) , Rememory (2017) , Porto (2016) , Newness (2017) , and the first two episodes of Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia (2016) are dedicated to his memory.
• Russia is very complicated. It is one of the most complicated histories. I could go on about this forever. It produces Dostoyevsky and Rachmaninoff and then it produces Stalins and Lenins. It is such a strange combination. I don't know why that rant about Russia was necessary.
• I have an aversion to remakes, which is ironic because I'm in two of them right now. When I went back and watched T3 recently, I thought we need to make a better movie. I can't say I'm a fan.
• I was a horrible athlete. My parents are athletes; they tried me to get me to do that, but I just couldn't. I sucked. First I wanted to be a scientist, and I set our bathroom on fire. Then I wanted to be a basketball player and I'm a not-very-tall white, Russian Jewish kid. So that didn't work out either.
• Guilt is a very important part of my personality... There are two things at work here, history and genetics. The history of Eastern European Jews, Ashkenazi Jews, has not been very pleasant. And I'm not just talking about World War II, but centuries and centuries of oppression and pogroms. If you are a product of that environment, it is a very big part of who you are. That's not to say it's all you are, but it is a part.

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Anton Yelchin

Yelchin was unsure exactly why he was cast in that particular role, though he figured it had to do with his young age and the fact that he was "familiar with Russian people. Very, very familiar." His parents are Russian. [2] During his audition, Yelchin had to try out his Russian accent, which included saying Chekov's famous line from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home , "nuclear wessel". Yelchin was unfamiliar with Star Trek prior to his being cast as Chekov but planned on viewing the various DVD box sets to learn more about the franchise. [3] (X)

Like the rest of the cast, Yelchin had signed on to do two additional Star Trek films when he took the role of Chekov. [4] The first of those films, Star Trek Into Darkness , was released in May 2013 and the second, Star Trek Beyond , was released in July 2016.

In 2009, he was part of the Star Trek ensemble which received a Washington DC Area Film Critics Association Award nomination in the category Best Ensemble and won a Boston Society of Film Critics Award in the category Best Ensemble Cast. He shared these awards with Chris Pine , Zachary Quinto , Zoe Saldana , Karl Urban , Leonard Nimoy , Simon Pegg , John Cho , Ben Cross , Eric Bana , Clifton Collins, Jr. , Bruce Greenwood , Jennifer Morrison , Chris Hemsworth , Winona Ryder , Faran Tahir , and Tyler Perry . In 2010, Yelchin was part of the ensemble which received a Broadcast Film Critics Association Award nomination in the category Best Acting Ensemble for Star Trek .

The 2013 virtual collectible card battle game Star Trek: Rivals used his pictures for card #79 "Ensign P. Chekhov" and card #95 "Acting Engineer P. Chekhov."

On 19 June 2016 , Yelchin was killed outside of his home in Studio City, Los Angeles when his car rolled down his driveway, pinning him against a security fence and brick mailbox pillar. [5] [6] [7] His death was ruled an accident as the result of "blunt traumatic asphyxia." [8] His 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee was subject to a recall.

• 1 Personal life
• 2.1 2000-2003
• 2.2 2004-2007
• 2.3 2008-2013
• 2.4 2014-2016
• 4 External links

Personal life [ ]

Yelchin was born in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) in Russia, then the second largest city of the Soviet Union. His parents were Irina Korina and Viktor Yelchin, both of whom were figure skaters known throughout the country. In September 1989, when Anton was only six months old, he and his parents emigrated to the United States. Because of their Jewish background, they received refugee status, owing to the long-term anti-Semitic policies of the Soviet State. (It is worth noting that Walter Koenig, who created the role of Chekov, was also of Soviet Jewish parentage, although he himself was not born in the USSR, and they were from Lithuania rather than Russia proper.)

Yelchin attended the Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies in Tarzana, California, and had begun acting by the age of nine. He enrolled at the University of Southern California in 2007 to study film. In addition to acting, Yelchin enjoyed playing the guitar. At the time of his death, he lived in Studio City, Los Angeles, California. [9]

2000-2003 [ ]

His first television appearance came at the age of 11 in an episode of ER . His first films were the drama A Time for Dancing and the independent film A Man Is Mostly Water , both made in 2000, with the latter co-starring Star Trek: Enterprise guest star Christopher Rydell . Yelchin and Scarlett Pomers both made featured appearances in the 2000 television movie Geppetto , which starred Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's René Auberjonois and Star Trek: The Next Generation 's Brent Spiner .

Yelchin played the title role in the comedy film Delivering Milo , about the spirit of a boy who must be convinced that life is worth being born for. Star Trek: Insurrection actor Michael Welch was among Yelchin's co-stars in this film, as was John Cho , whom Yelchin again worked with on Star Trek . In addition, Yelchin had a featured role in the film 15 Minutes , starring Avery Brooks , Kim Cattrall , and Kelsey Grammer . He also had a supporting role in the Paramount Pictures thriller Along Came a Spider . All of these films were released in 2001.

Yelchin won a Young Spirit Award for Best Performance in a Feature Film by a Leading Young Actor for his work in the 2001 Stephen King -based drama Hearts in Atlantis . He received a second Young Artist Award nomination for his performance on the television mini-series Taken (with Matt Frewer , Gwynyth Walsh , Rob LaBelle , and Brian Markinson ).

In 2002, Yelchin had a two-episode recurring role on the legal drama The Practice , with Paul Dooley and Alan Dale playing judges. Yelchin was also seen on Judging Amy with Chris Sarandon . In 2003, he appeared in an episode of Without a Trace with Christopher McDonald . Enrique Murciano was a regular on this series.

2004-2007 [ ]

Yelchin with Walter Koenig, the original Pavel Chekov, on the set of Star Trek

From 2004 through 2006, Yelchin starred in the Showtime series Huff , playing the son of the title character. In addition, Yelchin earned a third Young Spirit Award nomination for his starring role in the 2004 television movie Jack . This latter project also featured the aforementioned Brent Spiner, as well as Erich Anderson . Yelchin's other television credits included guest spots on Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004, with Patrick Kerr ), NYPD Blue (2004, with Gordon Clapp ), and Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2006), which was developed by Rene Balcer .

Yelchin also continued making a name for himself in films, receiving notices for his starring roles in 2004's House of D (co-starring Willie Garson and Robin Williams ) and 2006's Alpha Dog . He also starred in the drama Fierce People , which played at film festivals in 2005 and was released in theaters in September 2007. He then starred in the film Charlie Bartlett (2007), in which he played the title role, a wealthy teenager who appoints himself psychiatrist of his high school.

2008-2013 [ ]

Star Trek was not the only iconic franchise that Yelchin became a part of in 2009. Released just two weeks after Star Trek was the fourth Terminator film, Terminator Salvation , in which Yelchin played a teenage Kyle Reese (the role originated by Michael Biehn in 1984's The Terminator ).

In 2011, Yelchin starred in the acclaimed 2011 romantic drama Like Crazy , which also featured Amanda Carlin and for which he won the Spotlight Award at the Hollywood Film Festival and the Breakthrough Performer Award at the Hamptons International Film Festival. That same year, he starred in the remake of the 1985 cult horror film Fright Night as Charley Brewster, a teenager who believes his neighbor is a vampire. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine guest actor Chris Sarandon , who starred in the original Fright Night , made a cameo in the remake; Michael De Luca , writer of the Star Trek: Voyager episode " Threshold ", was one of the film's producers.

Yelchin was the voice of Clumsy Smurf in the 2011 film version of The Smurfs and its 2013 sequel The Smurfs 2 . The first Smurfs film also featured the voices of John Kassir and Frank Welker . Also in 2013, Yelchin was seen in Jim Jarmusch 's acclaimed vampire drama Only Lovers Left Alive and in the leading role of the thriller Odd Thomas .

2014-2016 [ ]

Yelchin acted alongside Frank Langella in the romantic comedy 5 to 7 (2014) and the neo-noir dramedy The Driftless Area (2015) and worked with his Star Trek co-star Winona Ryder in the biographical drama Experimenter (2015), the latter of which had Kellan Lutz portraying William Shatner . Yelchin also appeared in Rudderless (2014) with Jennifer Savidge , Burying the Ex (2014) with Dick Miller , and Broken Horses (2015) with Eric Sharp and Steve Luna .

Most recently, he starred opposite Star Trek: The Next Generation star Patrick Stewart in Jeremy Saulnier's critically-acclaimed horror-thriller Green Room (2016). In that film, Yelchin portrays a bassist whose band is hunted down by a gang of skinheads led by Stewart's character.

In addition to Star Trek Beyond , Yelchin had a number of other projects awaiting release at the time of his death, including the sci-fi drama Rememory and the family drama We Don't Belong Here . It was also announced just days prior to his death that he, Kelsey Grammer , and Ron Perlman were the voices of the main characters in Guillermo del Toro 's animated Netflix series Trollhunters , set to premiere in December 2016. [10]

Directors J.J. Abrams and Justin Lin , as well as fellow cast members Zachary Quinto , Zoë Saldana , John Cho , and Sofia Boutella , paid tribute to Yelchin on social media, while Karl Urban expressed horror at what had happened. [11] Abrams sent Entertainment Weekly a note signed by the " Star Trek Family", describing Yelchin as "our little brother. But only by years; he was as wise and clever and intellectually curious as anyone we ever knew." [12] Veterans of other Star Trek shows and films also paid tribute. [13] His character will reportedly not be recast. [14] His parents filed a wrongful death and product liability lawsuit against Fiat Chrysler in relation to Yelchin's death: a confidential settlement was eventually reached two years later. [15]

On 26 February 2017 , he was among the actors honored at the 2017 Academy Awards in their "In Memoriam" segment. [16]

Yelchin privately battled cystic fibrosis, regularly undergoing treatment at the University of Southern California's Keck Hospital. A foundation to help actors with disabilities like him was set up in 2017, and a year later, following a US$1 million donation, the adult cystic fibrosis center at Keck Hospital was renamed the Anton Yelchin Cystic Fibrosis Clinic. [17]

A documentary about his life, Love, Antosha , was released at the Sundance Film Festival on 28 January 2019 , with a later limited theatrical release in on 2 August 2019 . [18]

In 2020, Yelchin was again honored by the production staff of DIS Season 3 , by reference of the USS Yelchin , which was named for him.

In 2023, in the Star Trek: Picard Season 3 episode, " The Last Generation ", a character named Anton Chekov and voiced by Walter Koenig was introduced in that episode. He was named after Yelchin. ( citation needed • edit )

External links [ ]

• Anton Yelchin at Wikipedia
• Anton Yelchin Foundation
• Anton Yelchin at the Internet Movie Database
• Audio interview from the set of Star Trek Beyond
• 1 USS Voyager (NCC-74656-A)
• 2 Daniels (Crewman)
• 3 Star Trek: Prodigy

Actor Anton Yelchin of 'Star Trek' films dies in freak accident

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'Star Trek' star Anton Yelchin dies at 27 in freak car collision

Star Trek star Anton Yelchin has died at 27 following a tragic and strange car accident early Sunday morning in Los Angeles.

His publicist Jennifer Allen confirmed the news in a statement: "Actor Anton Yelchin was killed in a fatal traffic collision early this morning. His family requests you respect their privacy at this time."

Yelchin was pinned by his own car as he left his home in Studio City for a rehearsal, said Los Angeles Police Department spokeswoman Jenny Houser.

"A fatal traffic collision occurred," Houser said. "It was the result of the victim's own car rolling backward down his steep driveway, pinning him against a brick mailbox pillar and security fence.

"The victim was on his way to meet his friends for rehearsal. And when he didn’t show up, his friends went to his house, where they found him deceased by his car," Houser said. "It appeared (Yelchin) had momentarily exited his car, leaving it in the driveway."

Yelchin was trapped behind the car, "causing the trauma which led to his death."

5 essential Anton Yelchin roles

The Russian-born actor was best known for playing Chekov in the Star Trek reboot movies, including 2009's Star Trek and 2013's Star Trek Into Darkness. Yelchin had completed his role in  Star Trek Beyond (in theaters July 22), which is in the final editing stages.

Celebrities mourn Anton Yelchin on Twitter

He had also wrapped Thoroughbred, which finished shooting in Boston two weeks ago. The psychological thriller, expected in 2017, stars Olivia Cooke and Anya Taylor-Joy and is the theatrical directorial/screenwriting debut of playwright Cory Finley.

Several weeks ago, he had been announced to co-star with Brendan Gleeson in a limited-run TV series based on Stephen King's 2014 detective novel Mr. Mercedes .

Yelchin moved to the United States when he was 6 months old with his parents, Irina Korina and Viktor Yelchin, who were stars of the Leningrad Ice Ballet. He told USA TODAY in 2001 that he had no desire to follow in his parents' skating footsteps.

"I hate any physical activity. I like reading and chess. I was with my dad once and fell on the back of my head. My skating career ended there at age 7," Yelchin said.

He enrolled in acting classes and at age 9 made his film debut in A Man Is Mostly Water. Pairings followed with such formidable elder actors as Robert De Niro ( 15 Minutes ), Albert Finney ( Delivering Milo ) and Morgan Freeman ( Along Came a Spider ). At 12, Yelchin appeared alongside Sir Anthony Hopkins in a critically heralded performance in  Hearts in Atlantis.

Following his first appearance as Chekov in Star Trek , Yelchin starred as young Kyle Reese in 2009's Terminator Salvation.

After voicing Clumsy Smurf in  The Smurfs film, starring in the horror remake Fright Night  and the romantic drama  Like Crazy , Yelchin was declared a "fresh face" star by USA TODAY.

"I'm drawn to that which I have not done before, that which is challenging, that which allows me to create a different kind of character," he told USA TODAY in 2011.

John Cho, who plays Sulu in the rebooted Star Trek series, tweeted his respects Sunday.

"I loved Anton Yelchin so much. He was a true artist — curious, beautiful, courageous. He was a great pal and a great son. I'm in ruins," Cho wrote. "Please send your love to Anton's family right now. They need it."

Zachary Quinto, who portrays Spock in Star Trek , called Yelchin "our dear friend, our comrade, our Anton," adding that the actor was "one of the most open and intellectually curious people I have ever had the pleasure to know."

"So enormously talented and generous of heart, wise beyond his years. And gone before his time," Quinto wrote. "All love and strength to his family at this impossible time of grief."

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RIP Anton —

Star trek actor anton yelchin, 27, killed in freak accident, russian-american who played pavel chekov found crushed to death by his own car..

Tom Mendelsohn - Jun 20, 2016 12:58 pm UTC

Anton Yelchin, the Russian-American actor most famous for his portrayal of Pavel Chekov in the rebooted Star Trek movies, has been killed in an accident with his own car.

According to reports, the 27-year-old was found dead on Sunday morning, seemingly crushed between his Jeep Cherokee and a security fence at the bottom of his Los Angeles home's steep driveway.

Yelchin was born in St Petersburg to professional figure skaters who moved to the US soon after his birth. He played Chekov in 2009's Star Trek and 2013's Star Trek Into Darkness  and is due to appear in the third Star Trek  movie,  Star Trek Beyond ,  next month.

The actor was reportedly found by friends concerned by the fact that he hadn't shown up to a late-night rehearsal. LA police say he had just gotten out of the car when it rolled back and pinned him to his gate.

Tributes have poured in from Hollywood colleagues, including JJ Abrams, the director of the first two rebooted Star Trek films. He tweeted : "You were kind. You were funny as hell, and supremely talented. Anton, you weren't here nearly long enough. Missing you..."

pic.twitter.com/q8VBJBVPK3 — Bad Robot (@bad_robot) June 19, 2016

Justin Lin, who directed the third iteration of Star Trek, also wrote of his shock at the sudden death.

Still in shock. Rest in peace, Anton. Your passion and enthusiasm will live on with everyone that had the pleasure of knowing you. — Justin Lin (@trailingjohnson) June 19, 2016

His castmate Zachary Quinto said on Instagram : "our dear friend. our comrade. our anton. one of the most open and intellectually curious people i have ever had the pleasure to know. so enormously talented and generous of heart. wise beyond his years. and gone before his time. all love and strength to his family at this impossible time of grief."

Yelchin reportedly owned a 2016 Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit California Edition, and while there is currently no suggestion that this model is defective, some media reports have pointed out that other models of Jeep, which are manufactured by the Italian company Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, have had to be recalled because they did not sound warnings to drivers when they got out that their vehicles had been left in neutral rather than park.

In April this year, Fiat Chrysler issued a voluntary recall to Grand Cherokees built between July 16, 2012, and December 22, 2015. The company is yet to comment on Yelchin's accident.

A report from the American National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said: "The affected vehicles... may not adequately warn the driver when the driver’s door is opened and the vehicle is not in PARK, allowing them to exit the vehicle while the vehicle is still in gear."

Yelchin began his career at the age of nine in the independent film  A Man Is Mostly Water . He has also appeared in many other films, including Like Crazy , Alpha Dog , Fright Night , and Along Came a Spider.

Listing image by Paul Archuleta/Getty Images

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Anton Yelchin Dies In Car Accident: Chekov In ‘Star Trek’ Reboot Was 27

Anton Yelchin , best known for portraying Ensign Pavel Chekov in the Star Trek reboot film series, as well as for roles in, Jim Jarmush’s Only Lovers Left Alive , the Stephen King adaptation Hearts In Atlantis , and the acclaimed horror film Green Room , is dead following a tragic car accident in his Studio City home last night. He was 27.

“Actor Anton Yelchin was killed in a fatal traffic collision early this morning. His family requests you respect their privacy at this time,” his publicist, Jennifer Allen said in a statement.

Born in Leningrad, Russia (now Saint Petersburg) in 1989 to parents who were stars of Russia’s Ice Ballet for 15 years, Yelchin and his family immigrated to the United States as political refugees that same year. Yelchin subsequently grew up in Los Angeles, attending Tarzana’s Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies and in 2007, the University of Southern California. However, his entry into acting came at age 9 in the indie film A Man is Mostly Water , with other early roles including in Delivering Milo , House of D , and the 2002 Steven Spielberg-produced miniseries Taken .

His first major recognition as an actor came in 2001 when he played the younger version of Bobby Garfield, played as an adult by David Morse, in Hearts in Atlantis . The next year, Yelchin won Best Performance in a Feature Film – Leading Young Actor at the Young Artist Awards for his performance. Yelchin next came to increased prominence in 2006, co-starring as the central kidnapping victim in Nick Cassavetes’ crime thriller Alpha Dog , opposite Emile Hirsch, Justin Timberlake, Ben Foster, Shawn Hatosy, Olivia Wilde, Amanda Seyfried, Harry Dean Stanton, Sharon Stone, and Bruce Willis.

Yelchin’s breakout role came at 19 in Charlie Bartlett , the Jon Poll-directed comedy-drama written by Gustin Nash about an awkward, wealthy teenager who begins giving out therapeutic advice and prescription drugs to his classmates in a bid to become popular. This was followed in 2009 by a pair of major franchise roles that solidifed his career – the teenaged version of Kyle Reese in Terminator Salvation , taking on the role originated in 1984 by Michael Biehn in James Cameron’s The Terminator , and Ensign Pavel Chekov in JJ Abram’s 2009 Star Trek .

Like many of his co-stars on Star Trek, Yelchin notably looked to the performance of his predecessor on the original series and subsequent films, Walter Koenig, for insight into the role. Mimicking the original Chekov’s accent, Yelchin also drew from his own Russian background as well as from the Cold War climate of the original series for inspiration. “I wanted it to be close to the Chekov accent, I guess that is where our opinions differ. I have no problem doing a real Russian accent, but that wouldn’t be Chekov to me. The interesting thing about it is that his accent is a cold-war stereotype of a Russian person,” he said in a 2009 interview . “It is not entirely the same, but Walter [Koenig] came on set and was like “that sounds like me.” And that is what was fun for me. As a person familiar with a Russian accent, and someone with Russian roots who can speak Russian and knows what Russian people sound like, it was fun to purposefully mess around with the Russian accent — to purposefully change what I thought a Russian accent was to suit that stereotype they had in the sixties.”

One notable aspect of that performance came in the reboot franchise’s first film, when Yelchin’s Chekov displayed extraordinary difficulty pronouncing the phrase “victor victor” and ended up saying it as “wictor wictor”, a tribute to Koenig’s memorable pronunciation of “nuclear vessles” as “nuclear wessles” in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home . Yelchin portrayed Chekov two more times – in 2013’s Star Trek Into Darkness , also directed by JJ Abrams, and in the upcoming Star Trek Beyond directed by Justin Lin which hits theaters July 22.

Most recently, Yelchin drew great reviews for his performance in the acclaimed horror film Green Room , in which he co-starred with Imogen Poots and Alia Shawkat as members of a punk band who find themselves hunted by neo-Nazi skinheads after witnessing a murder at an isolated Pacific Northwest club. The film won raves throughout its festival run in 2015, taking home the Grolsch People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award at the Toronto Film Festival last October. It had limited theatrical release in April of this year.

Other roles include: Charlie Brewster in remake of Fright Night opposite David Tennant, Colin Farrell, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Imogen Poots, and Toni Collette; Jim Jarmush’s critically acclaimed vampire romance Only Lovers Left Alive , opposite Tom Hiddleston, Tilda Swinton, Mia Wasikowska, Jeffrey Wright, Slimane Dazi, and John Hurt; the romantic drama Like Crazy ; voicing Clumsy Smurf in the feature film adaptation of The Smurfs ; the Aardman Animations production The Pirates! Band of Misfits ; and the 2014 romantic comedy 5 TO 7 .

Yelchin’s final film is Thoroughbred , a psychological thriller also starring Olivia Cooke and Anya Taylor-Joy that marks the feature film debut of playwright Cory Finley. Filming on Thoroughbred wrapped two weeks ago in Boston.

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'Star Trek' Family Mourns Anton Yelchin; JJ Abrams Calls Him "Brilliant", "Kind", "Funny"

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Anton Yelchin, Russian-Jewish ‘Star Trek’ actor, crushed to death by own car at 27

( JTA ) — Russian-Jewish actor Anton Yelchin, who starred in the new “Star Trek” movies reboot, was killed by his own car rolling down the driveway.

Friends found Yelchin, 27, at his house Sunday pinned between his car and a brick pillar; the vehicle was in neutral and running, TMZ reported.

It is not known why Yelchin got out of the car, though police do not suspect foul play, according to the website.

Yelchin starred as Chekov in the two latest “Star Trek” movies and will be seen in the third film in the series, “Star Trek Beyond,” set for release next month. A tribute to Yelchin was posted on the official Star Trek website.

He also appeared in films including “Like Crazy,” “Alpha Dog,” “Terminator Salvation” and “Fright Night.”

Yelchin, a native of St. Petersburg, immigrated to the United States with his family as an infant. He was the son of two figure skaters, Irina Korina and Viktor Yelchin, who reportedly were persecuted for being Jewish.

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Jeep that killed Star Trek actor Anton Yelchin was one of thousands of faulty vehicles recalled

Friends found the 27-year-old pinned between his 2.5 tonne jeep and the gates to his LA home on Sunday as it is revealed his vehicle was model of Jeep Grand Cherokee have been recalled twice for gearbox problems

• Yasmin Jeffery
• Howell Davies
• Danny Collins
• Published : 19:23, 19 Jun 2016
• Updated : 20:25, 20 Jun 2016

THE vehicle involved in a freak accident that killed Star Trek actor Anton Yelchin was being recalled over safety concerns, it has emerged.

Russian-born Yelchin was found dead by friends pinned between a concrete pillar outside his LA home and his Jeep Grand Cherokee yesterday.

Some models of the Cherokee were recalled over concerns about the vehicles' gear stick

It is believed the 2.5 ton car rolled back down the drive of the 27-year-old’s home and crushed him after he had got out the vehicle.

Thousands of the Jeeps were recalled by the manufacturer after concerns about their gear sticks in July 2012 and December last year.

Fiat Chrysler, who make Jeeps, said in a statement  that it's investigating and it's premature to speculate on the cause of the crash.

They offered sympathies to Yelchin's friends and family.

The problem meant drivers could be left unaware whether their car was in neutral or park when they left the vehicle.

Motorists had to rely on a warning light on the gear stick and a bell as their car door opened.

Jeep made moves to solve the problem by making the warnings clearer when a car was left in neutral.

According to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) report, “The affected vehicles ... may not adequately warn the driver when driver’s door is opened and the vehicle is not in PARK, allowing them to exit the vehicle while the vehicle is still in gear.

“Drivers thinking that their vehicle’s transmission is in the PARK position may be struck by the vehicle and injured if they attempt to get out of the vehicle while the engine is running and the parking brake is not engaged.”

Data from the report shows that the problem potentially caused 212 crashes, 308 property damage claims and 41 injuries.

The Sun has contacted Jeep for comment.

Authorities investigating the tragedy have not yet established why Yelchin was out of his car but it is believed the 4x4 rolled back down his driveway's steep incline, ramming him into the pillar.

Friends made the grim discovery when they visited his home in San Fernando Valley at 1am local time on Sunday after he failed to attend a planned rehearsal.

The car was found in neutral with its engine still running.

His publicist has issued a statement following the tragedy: "Anton Yelchin was killed in a fatal traffic collision early this morning.

"His family requests you respect their privacy at this time‎."

There are not thought to be any suspicious circumstances.

LAPD spokeswoman Jenny Houser told the Hollywood Reporter : "It appears he momentarily exited his car and it rolled backward, causing trauma that led to his death."

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Yelchin rose to fame in 2006 film Alpha Dog before securing the role of Kyle Reese in Terminator Salvation, and Chekov in 2009’s Star Trek and 2013’s Star Trek Into Darkness.

He was working on a number of projects before his death, including a TV show called Mr Mercedes.

The star had recently completed work on the next instalment, Star Trek Beyond, due to be released next month.

Star Trek's official website and Twitter account has paid tribute to the late actor: "StarTrek.com is deeply saddened to report that Anton Yelchin, Star Trek’s current Chekov, died today, June 19, at the age of 27.

"The actor was killed, in a freak accident, at home in Los Angeles by his own car.

"Yelchin played Chekov in Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness and will be seen next month in Star Trek Beyond."

The tribute continued: "Please join StarTrek.com in offering our condolences to Yelchin’s family, friends, colleagues and fans."

Yelchin was born in Russia although he emigrated to the US as a political refugee with his professional figure skater parents, Irina and Viktor Yelchin, as a baby.

Raised in Los Angeles, Yelchin attended the University of Southern California.

He started acting as a child, scoring his first professional role aged just nine in A Man Is Mostly Water.

Fellow celebrities have begun paying tribute to the actor on social media.

Star Trek co-star John Cho tweeted: "I loved Anton Yelchin so much.

"He was a true artist - curious, beautiful, courageous.

"He was a great pal and a great son. I'm in ruins."

He continued:  " Please send your love to Anton's family right now. They need it."

Actor and co-star Zachary Quinto shared a tribute to his friend on Twitter: "one of the most open and intellectually curious people…"

Comedian Matt Lucas wrote: "Dreadful news about Anton Yelchin.

"I thought he was an amazing actor."

Meanwhile, US actress Anna Kendick has described the Star Trek actor's death as "unreal" and a huge loss".

We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at [email protected] or call 0207 782 4368.

• Los Angeles

Watch CBS News

'Star Trek' Actor Anton Yelchin Killed By His Own Car At Age 27

June 19, 2016 / 2:28 PM EDT / CBS Boston

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Anton Yelchin, a rising actor best known for playing Chekov in the new "Star Trek" films, was killed by his own car as it rolled backward down his driveway early Sunday, police and his publicist said.

The car pinned Yelchin, 27, against a brick mailbox pillar and a security fence at his home in Studio City, according to Los Angeles police Officer Jenny Hosier. He had gotten out of the vehicle momentarily, but police did not say why he was behind it when it started rolling.

Yelchin was on his way to meet friends for a rehearsal, Hosier said. When he didn't show up, the group came to his home and found him dead.

The freak accident tragically cuts short the promising career of an actor whom audiences were still getting to know.

Yelchin began acting as a child, taking small roles in independent films and various television shows, such as "ER," ''The Practice," and "Curb Your Enthusiasm." His breakout big-screen role came opposite Anthony Hopkins in 2001's "Hearts in Atlantis."

He transitioned into teenage roles in films such as the crime thriller "Alpha Dog" and the teen comedy "Charlie Bartlett." He also played a young Kyle Reese in 2009's "Terminator Salvation."

Yelchin, an only child, was born in Russia. His parents were professional figure skaters who moved the family to the United States when Yelchin was a baby. He briefly flirted with skating lessons, too, before discovering that he wasn't very skilled on the ice. That led him to acting class.

"I loved the improvisation part of it the most, because it was a lot like just playing around with stuff. There was something about it that I just felt completely comfortable doing and happy doing," Yelchin told The Associated Press in 2011 while promoting the romantic drama "Like Crazy." He starred opposite Felicity Jones.

"(My father) still wanted me to apply to college and stuff, and I did," Yelchin said. "But this is what I wanted."

His biggest role to date has been in the rebooted "Star Trek" films as the heavily accented navigator Chekov, for which he was able to draw on his Russian roots. The third film in the series, "Star Trek Beyond," comes out in July.

"What's great about him is he can do anything. He's a chameleon. He can do bigger movies or smaller, more intimate ones," ''Like Crazy" director Drake Doremus told the AP in 2011. "There are a lot of people who can't, who can only do one or the other. ... That's what blows my mind."

Yelchin transitioned between the big sci-fi franchise and voicing a part for "The Smurfs." He also appeared in more eccentric and artier fare, like Jim Jarmusch's vampire film "Only Lovers Left Alive" and Jeremy Saulnier's horror thriller "Green Room," a cult favorite that came out earlier this year.

The actor's publicist, Jennifer Allen, confirmed his death and said his family requests privacy.

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Why Star Trek's Colm Meaney Tried To Get Rid Of O'Brien's Irish Accent

The character of Chief Miles O'Brien first appeared in the pilot episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," "Encounter at Farpoint" (September 28, 1987). Throughout the show's first season, Chief O'Brien would appear mostly in the Enterprise's transporter room, tasked with beaming the Enterprise crew up and down from dangerous away missions. As the show progressed, O'Brien was allowed to speak up more and more. By the show's fourth season, O'Brien would marry his sweetheart Keiko (Rosalind Chao), become possessed by an alien criminal, and reveal long-lasting PTSD. All told, O'Brien was in 52 episodes of "Next Generation" before becoming a regular cast member of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," affording him 160 additional episodes. 

O'Brien was played by reliable Irish actor Colm Meany, star of John Houston's "The Dead," "Dick Tracy," and "The Commitments" (and its sequels). He was a hard worker, and during his 12-year stint on "Star Trek," appeared in 23 feature films. He has appeared in kids' films, indie dramas, and violent, Hollywood blockbusters. Meany, born in Dublin, has also long been a mainstay of Irish cinema and television, and once even performed in an audio dramatization of Samuel Beckett's incredibly Irish bondage drama "Murphy." These days, he lives in Majorca, although he still supports Ireland's Sinn Féin. 

At a "Star Trek" convention , however, Meany once revealed that he often butted heads with casting directors over his accent. Meany's Irish accent is natural and understated, at least to the ears of American casting agents, who expected all Irish actors to have the same broad, chirpy patois. When going from audition to audition in Los Angeles, he would downplay his Irishness, eager to play non-Irish roles. Not everyone, he would explain, sounds like "Going My Way" star Barry Fitzgerald.

I am not Barry Fitzgerald

Meany has a point. Throughout the history of American film, Irish characters are often played by American actors, and they wouldn't always do their dialect homework. In the American acting community, a broad, all-in-one Irish accent began to emerge, and it was an accent that no one actually had. Meany pointed out:

"What we're talking about here is: there's a history in American films of Irish characters having these dreadful, dreadful, non-existent kind of accents. 'Oh, top o' the marnin', top o' the marnin'! Oh, sir Jesus Christ, oh dear Lard!' And it's all sing-song like that, you know. But the one I hold responsible for a lot of that is — and he was a great actor — but Barry Fitzgerald did it. And also Barry Fitzgerald had a chin like that and he'd be chewing the pipe and he talked like that, and so everybody in America thought Irish people talk like that."

Fitzgerald had been working in film since 1920, but his fame exploded in 1944 for his Oscar-winning turn in Leo McCarey's musical religious drama "Going My Way." He also appeared in the 1952 John Wayne vehicle "The Quiet Man," although he starred in 20 films in between the two, including "Duffy's Tavern," "The Naked City," and "Silver City." It seems the ghost of Fitzgerald hung over all Irish actors in America, and Meany hated that. He said: 

" I remember going in and auditioning for things, and people would say I didn't sound Irish. And I'd say [Barry Fitzgerald impression] 'Oh, does that sound Irish? Does that sound Irish? Is that better?'"

Meany could sound stereotypically Irish if he wanted to, but he wanted more than that for his career. 

An Irish actor in Los Angeles

In response to the Fitzgerald accusations, Meany started to adjust his accent to sound as un-Irish as possible, seemingly without realizing it. When he landed the gig of Chief O'Brien on "Star Trek," and he was given more and more lines of dialogue, he strained to make the character American (despite his Irish name). This was all an effort to prove his range. Meany said:

"I, as an actor working in Los Angeles, didn't want to be playing Irish parts all the time. [...] It's very limiting for an actor if you're known as just an Irish actor or a Scottish actor or a Cockney actor or whatever. It can be limiting. So it was the early days for me in Los Angeles, and I was trying to play a lot of a variety of parts. [...] When O'Brien started talking — which took a few episodes you know — I started to take his accent more towards American." 

It seems that executive producer Rick Berman disagreed. Berman felt that the U.S.S. Enterprise-D should have a definitive Irish voice, perhaps in an effort to keep "Star Trek: The Next Generation" multicultural like its 1966 forebear. The original series, after all, featured a Scots accent and a Russian accent. Meany recalled:

"I was sort of taking it over in that sort of direction and trying to make him [American]. And I got notes from Rick Berman, 'What are you doing!? What are you doing!?' I said, just, 'You know, I don't want him to be too ... I was thinking he was maybe second generation Irish or something, American.' 'No he's not! He's Irish! We want that Irish accent, we want that accent!'" 

Irish it was. The accent returned.

Star Trek's multiculturalism

The multiculturalism of "Star Trek" has always been vital to each show, and it carried over into "Deep Space Nine." On that series, O'Brien had many scenes with Dr. Bashir, played by Alexander Siddig, a Sudanese actor raised in London. This was after starring opposite the London-born Marina Sirtis and the Yorkshire-born Patrick Stewart on "Next Generation." Meany came to understand that his Irish voice served a dramatic function in communicating the diversity of Gene Roddenberry's future, saying: 

"[P]art of the thing that they wanted on the show as well was that kind of ... not just a sort of a multi-species situation, but a multi-ethnic situation as well. So you had people, you know, Sid and that come on, and me. And you had, you know, Marina of course on 'Next Generation' as well. So they wanted that kind of multi-ethnic thing, people genuinely from other places than just the U.S. But for me, you know, it was Rick Berman that forced me back to use my own accent, you know. Which is an unusual accent for Americans to hear, because it's a Dublin accent." 

Some of O'Brien's Irish heritage came through in the character — he named his daughter Molly, presumably after Molly Bloom in James Joyce's "Ulysses" — but his heritage was treated as natural and incidental throughout "Star Trek." It was a sign that any and all voices were welcome in the choir, regardless of origin. After all the audition frustration Meany experienced, "Star Trek" asked that he merely speak the way he speaks. It certainly made his performance that much more natural. 

And now, as Trekkies know, O'Brien will come to be the most important person in history . 

Periodismo.com

Notable People who died in 2024

Posted: 3 July 2024 | Last updated: 3 July 2024

Robert Towne - July 1

Martin Mull - June 27

Bill Cobbs - June 25

Shifty Shellshock - June 24

Tamayo Perry - June 23

Taylor Wily - June 20

Donald Sutherland - June 20

Willie Mays - June 18

Anouk Aimée - June 18

Hiram Kasten - June 16

Kevin Campbell - June 15

Jerry West - June 12

Françoise Hardy - June 11

William Anders - June 7

Rob Burrow - June 2

Jeannette Charles - June 2

Erich Anderson - May 31

Marian Robinson - May 31

Tom Bower - May 30

Bill Walton - May 27

Johnny Wactor - May 25

Richard M. Sherman - May 25

Morgan Spurlock - May 23

Charlie Colin - May 22

Richard Foronjy - May 19

Ebrahim Raisi - May 19

Dabney Coleman - May 16

Tony McFarr - May 13

Alice Munro - May 13

David Sanborn - May 12

Roger Corman - May 9

Sean Burroughs - May 9

Dennis Thompson - May 8

Steve Albini - May 7

César Luis Menotti - May 5

Bernard Hill - May 5

Darius Morris - May 4

Richard Tandy - May 1

Paul Auster - April 30

Marla Adams - April 25

Mike Pinder - April 25

Terry Carter - April 23

Chan Romero - April 22

Daniel Dennett - April 19

Dickey Betts - April 18

Akebono Tarō - April 11

O.J. Simpson - April 10

C. J. Snare - April 5

John Barth - April 2

Joe Flaherty - April 1

Chance Perdomo - March 29

Louis Gossett, Jr. - March 29

Ron Harper - March 21

M. Emmet Walsh - March 19

Steve Harley - March 17

Eric Carmen - March 11

T.M. Stevens - March 10

Steve Lawrence - March 7

Akira Toriyama - March 1

Brian Mulroney - February 29

Richard Lewis - February 28

Jacob Rothschild - February 26

Charles Dierkop - February 25

Kenneth Mitchell - February 24

Ewen MacIntosh - February 21

Andreas Brehme - February 20

Alexei Navalny - February 16

Bob Edwards - February 11

Kelvin Kiptum - February 11

Sebastián Piñera - February 6

Toby Keith - February 5

Don Murray - February 2

Christopher Priest - February 2

Carl Weathers - February 1

Chita Rivera - January 30

Gary Graham - January 22

Dexter King - January 22

Gigi Riva - January 22

James Kottak - January 9

Adan Canto - January 8

Franz Beckenbauer - January 7

Mario Zagallo - January 5

David Soul - January 4

Glynis Johns - January 4

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The 50 Most Disappointing Movie Sequels of All Time

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Andy Greene

Sequels are almost as old as Hollywood itself. Even before talkies hit the marketplace in 1927, studios were churning out follow-up movies like The Fall of a Nation and Don Q, Son of Zorro. The trend continued throughout the Golden Age of Hollywood with The Bride of Frankenstein , Dracula’s Daughter , The Thin Man Goes Home, Mr. Belvedere Rings the Bell, Jolson Sings Again , and Father’s Little Dividend. Blockbusters of the Seventies and Eighties like Star Wars, The Exorcist, Halloween, Ghostbusters, Batman , and Raiders of the Lost Ark launched film franchises that continue to this day.

It’s easy to understand why risk-averse studios are so eager to green-light sequels. If a formula worked once before, why not simply try again? It’s also much easier to market a familiar story than it is to introduce something new. The only problem is that precious few sequels in Hollywood history have ever lived up to the original. And for every Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and Terminator 2: Judgment Day that truly justify their existence, there are about 300 movies like Weekend at Bernie’s II and Son of the Mask that, to put it kindly, do not.  

A list of the worst sequels in history could be almost endless, and almost too easy. Few people turned on Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles or American Pie Presents: The Naked Mile and expected some great masterpiece. So in picking our list of the worst movie sequels, we limited selections to movies that seemed at the time like they might actually be worthwhile. We admit this list is very subjective. And it’s easy to fault us for imagining anything decent could come out of the latter-day Die Hard or Terminator movies, but they somehow managed to get our hopes up at least a little every single time. (If they made Terminator 37, we’d still walk in feeling hopeful. We’re fools.)

Please join us on this sad journey through Hollywood history where Michael Meyers is never truly dead, John McClane transforms from a regular police officer into an immortal killing machine, the odd numbered Star Trek movies always suck, and we wait in vain for the day any Jurassic Park sequel is even halfway watchable. 

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines had a lot working against it before the cameras even started rolling. The first two Terminator movies were the brainchild of James Cameron. He wrote them, directed them, and oversaw every detail of their production. He’s also a genius that’s basically never made a bad movie. But Cameron wasn’t involved with Terminator 3. The film also didn’t have Linda Hamilton or Edward Furlong on board to play Sarah and John Connor. The only thing it had from the first two movies (besides a cameo from Earl Boen as Dr. Peter Silberman) was the Terminator himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger. And as we’ve learned from Batman and Robin, End of Days, The Sixth Day, and many other turkeys, Schwarzenegger alone doesn’t guarantee a great movie. And this is far from a great movie. It’s a reprise of T2, where yet another advanced Terminator comes back in time, played by Kristanna Loken, and John Connor (now Nick Stahl) has to find a way to stay alive with help from another T-850 Terminator, played by Schwarzenegger. There’s almost no scene worth remembering up until the very end when a nuclear war begins and John Connor fulfills his fate by taking command. It’s a genuinely chilling moment, but it can’t make up for the nearly two hours that precede it. To be fair, nothing was ever going to top T2. It’s one of the greatest sequels in Hollywood history, rivaled only by The Godfather II, but Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines doesn’t even come close.

Staying Alive (1983)

The dance sequences in 1977’s Saturday Night Fever are some of the most iconic images in the history of film. But they’re just a few fleeting minutes in an otherwise dark movie about a Brooklyn teenager (played by John Travolta) desperate to improve his lot in life. Gene Siskel considered it the greatest movie in the history of Hollywood. By the time we catch up with Travolta’s Tony Manero character in 1983’s Staying Alive, he’s a waiter who dreams of Broadway stardom. Sylvester Stallone is the director, and he invited his brother Frank to contribute songs to the soundtrack. And with all due respect to Frank Stallone, his work doesn’t exactly stand up to the Bee Gees. (They have some deeply unmemorable songs of their own on the soundtrack.) But bad music is far from the biggest problem in Staying Alive. There’s simply no heart to the story, and Manero finds himself acting in an abysmal Broadway musical that feels like a Flock of Seagulls fever dream. “ Staying Alive is a sequel with no understanding of what made its predecessor work,” Janet Maslin wrote in The New York Times. “The first film was funny and touching, powered by a phenomenally successful score. This one is clumsy, mean-spirited, and amazingly unmusical.”

Jurassic Park: The Lost World (1997)

With the very big exception of the Indiana Jones movies, Steven Spielberg has largely resisted the lure of sequels throughout his long career. He could have made a fortune directing follow-up movies to Jaws, E.T., and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but he knew they’d never live up to the originals, and that his time would be better spent on new projects. But 1993’s Jurassic Park was such a mega-hit that he went against his better judgment and agreed to direct 1997’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park. It’s an adaptation of a novel that Michael Crichton reluctantly churned out in 1995 so that this very movie could exist. It’s about another island where the Jurassic Park dinosaurs were bred. Jeff Goldblum heads there alongside Julianne Moore and Vince Vaughn. The dinos attack. People die. In the end, a T. rex is set loose in San Diego. It all feels very humdrum and lacks any sense of wonder found in the original. It made a ton of money, and they’re in the midst of creating a seventh Jurassic Park right now, but only the first one is a genuinely good movie. The sequels are all varying degrees of terrible. 

Bad Santa 2 (2016)

When comedy sequels truly work, which is exceedingly rare, they come out within a couple of years of the original, and are assembled by the same creative team. Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey and Addams Family Values are the gold standard here. They hit theaters within two years of their predecessors, and the key behind-the-scenes players (Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon for Bill & Ted, Barry Sonnenfeld for Addams Family ) were back. Bad Santa 2 came out 13 years after Bad Santa, without the help of original director Terry Zwigoff or writers Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. They did have Bad Santa himself, Billy Bob Thortnon, along with Tony Cox as his conniving partner, and even former child actor Brett Kelly reprising his Santa-obsessed Thurman Merman character. The old gang reunites to pull off another Christmas heist, but the dirty jokes just don’t land in this one. “There’s a going-through-the-motions vibe to the whole affair,” wrote Rolling Stone’ s David Fear. “The original believed in its sodden, everyone-sucks with every ounce of its hardened, pitch-black heart — ironically, its horribleness made it that much more humanistic (and hilarious). The sequel is closer to fool’s coal: You can blow the thin patina of painted darkness off it with a breeze and find there’s nothing underneath.”

Teen Wolf Too (1987)

To be very clear, the original Teen Wolf is far from a great movie. But Michael J. Fox had more than enough Back to the Future -era charm to pull off the role as a nerd turned werewolf who becomes a high school basketball star and unlikely ladies man. Sadly, Fox is nowhere to be seen in the sequel. It stars Jason Bateman as the cousin of his character. He goes to college, discovers he’s also a werewolf, and uses his powers to win boxing matches. “College Boxer Transforms Into Werewolf” should have generated headlines all across the globe, but it’s treated as little more than a regional curiosity in this horrid movie. “The pacing is near-cataleptic and the movie’s intended comic highlight is a frog fight in the biology lab,” wrote Michael Wilmington in the Los Angeles Times. “Isn’t that just what you’re dying to see and hear? Bad dialogue, lugubriously paced; awful jokes about werewolves, and guffawing actors churlishly hurling around a lot of little frogs?”

Men in Black: International (2019)

If any movie franchise was poised to create a cinematic universe, it was Men in Black. There’s literally an entire galaxy of wacky aliens to explore, and a small army of Men in Black spread across Earth to battle them. If Sony handled this IP properly, we could be 10 seasons into a Men in Black cable show, eight seasons into an animated program, and somewhere around spinoff movie 12 or 13. But their first attempt to move beyond the Will Smith/Tommy Lee Jones movie trilogy was 2019’s Men in Black: International, starring Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, Rebecca Ferguson, Liam Neeson, and Kumail Nanjiani. It centers around a London Men in Black office, and the search for a powerful weapon hidden somewhere on the planet. It grossed just enough to possibly break even, but not nearly enough to justify another one of these things. ”It has been 17 years since Men in Black was a hot property, and the intervening gap has done nothing to revive interest in it,” wrote film critic James Berardinelli. “Whoever spearheaded this half-hearted resurrection should be fitted with a golden parachute. For those who remember the Men in Black movies fondly, stick with your memories. Seeing this latest installment is more likely to degrade than enhance them.”

Airplane 2: The Sequel (1982)

When it comes to comedy sequels, the temptation to simply recreate the exact structure of the original movie, along with all of the signature gags, is just too tough for most filmmakers to ignore. That’s why the genius trio of David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker opted against creating a sequel to Airplane! so they could devote their time to developing the TV series Police Squad. That show — which eventually morphed into the Naked Gun movie franchise — is also why Leslie Nielsen wasn’t free to appear in Airplane 2: The Sequel. It did reunite Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, and Lloyd Bridges, but writer-director Ken Finkleman simply doesn’t have the same comedic instincts as Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker. (His prior movie was Grease 2. Need we say more?) He wrote a screenplay about a lunar shuttle headed to the moon, but it’s basically just a straight remake of Airplane! minus about 500 laughs. The only good thing about the whole fiasco is that Naked Gun exists because Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker were smart enough to avoid this movie. You won’t see either of the Naked Gun sequels on this list. Unlike Airplane 2: The Sequel, they’re both extremely funny.

Lethal Weapon 4 (1998)

If we were making a list of the best sequels in Hollywood history, Lethal Weapon 2 would be near the top of the list. The third one was slightly underwhelming, but the series didn’t crap out until the fourth one arrived in 1998. By this point, Joe Pesci and Rene Russo were part of the Lethal Weapon family along with series stars Mel Gibson and Danny Glover. Chris Rock and Jet Li came on board for the fourth chapter, cramming in so many big names they barely fit on the poster. In this one, Riggs and Murtaugh battle an Asian counterfeiter/slave trader. Glover is beyond “too old for this shit” by this one, considering that his character planned on retiring from the police force a decade earlier, and it feels like everyone is just going through the motions, and counting how much money they’re making per second. The script was nowhere near ready when filming started, and that’s clear in most every frame. “I felt like Lethal Weapon 4 was outtakes [from the previous movies],” wrote critic Roger Ebert, “stuff they didn’t use earlier, pieced together into a movie that doesn’t really, in its heart, believe it is necessary.”

Iron Man 2 (2010)

The first Iron Man movie forever changed Hollywood. It marked the beginning of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the start of a broader superhero fixation that grips the industry to this day, and a new dawn for the career of Robert Downey Jr. But when it came time to make a second Iron Man movie in 2010, just two years after the original, Marvel was still fine-tuning its movie operation. Justin Theroux took over as screenwriter for this one, and he cobbled together a convoluted tale where Tony Stark is forced to confront a serious health scare, a powerful new Russian enemy portrayed by Mickey Rourke, and pressures that came after the public learned of his true identity. “Everything fun and terrific about Iron Man, a mere two years ago, has vanished with its sequel,” wrote the Hollywood Reporter’ s Kirk Honeycutt. “In its place, Iron Man 2 has substituted noise, confusion, multiple villains, irrelevant stunts, and misguided story lines. A film series that started out with critical and commercial success will have to settle for only the latter with this sequel.” 

Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

The initial announcement that Natalie Portman was returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe for 2022’s Thor: Love and Thunder was greeted with real excitement. She’d been AWOL since 2013’s Thor: The Dark World, despite playing a pretty big role in the saga as Jane Foster, Thor’s astrophysicist girlfriend. Excitement grew when fans learned she was going to finally wield the hammer herself and take on the role of the Mighty Thor. But then word slipped out that the character was battling stage 4 cancer. The script tries to balance out this colossal bummer with an endless series of comic sequences that creates a very odd overall tone. If you don’t believe us, listen to Thor himself, Chris Hemworth: “I got caught up in the improv and the wackiness, and I became a parody of myself,” he told Vanity Fair this year. “I didn’t stick the landing.”

Alien Resurrection (1997)

The first three Alien movies were directed by three of the best directors of their time: Ridley Scott, James Cameron, and David Fincher. The third one was a letdown, since Fincher was still a novice, the studio didn’t fully trust him, and the screenplay was never really finished. But it remains a David Fincher movie that’s intermittently innovative and interesting. The same can’t be said for 1997’s Alien Resurrection. It takes place on a military spaceship 200 years after Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley character died at the end of Alien 3. She’s cloned from a drop of her blood, and somehow her memories are intact. They also bring back the Xenomorph alien species, which is a very, very bad idea. (Haven’t these people heard about the events of the first three movies?) Needless to say, the Xenomorphs grow, reproduce, and start killing. Winona Ryder enters the story, and we eventually learn she’s a robot. Ripley once again batters the shit out of the Xenomorph, but haven’t we seen this all before? “This is a series whose inspiration has come, gone, and been forgotten,” wrote Roger Ebert. “I’m aliened out.”

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

For a while, it was popular to cite Spider-Man 3 as the low point of the franchise. But time has been somewhat kind to Emo Spider-Man and his Pete Wentz haircut, and a small cult (as well as endless memes) have grown around its weirdness. And even if you think Spider-Man 3 is a bloated sludge of a movie with too many villains, it’s clearly superior to The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which marked the premature end of the Andrew Garfield era. It’s the one where Jamie Foxx plays Electro, Paul Giamatti takes on the Rhino role, the Green Goblin returns, and Gwen (played by Emma Stone) falls to her death. This was the fifth Spider-Man movie in a 12-year period, and it all just feels like a rehash of things we’ve seen before, along with an effort to set up about six different spinoff movies and sequels. “The studios and the producers have to split the difference — between excellence and adequacy, between darkness and light, between seriousness and fun,” Wesley Morris wrote on Grantland. “ The Amazing Spider-Man 2 might have been split too far. It doesn’t taste like anything.” 

U.S. Marshals (1998)

The huge success of 1993’s The Fugitive meant a sequel was somewhat inevitable, even though any such project was basically doomed from the start. There was no logical way for Harrison Ford to be framed for a second murder, escape from the law, and get chased around again by Tommy Lee Jones. It would have been preposterous, and Ford was never going to sign on to such a thing. The only move was to send Jones’ Samuel Gerard character and his team of U.S. Marshals after another unjustly accused man. That’s what happened in 1998’s U.S. Marshals, where Wesley Snipes takes over for Harrison Ford as the man on the run. The movie was a modest hit, but it has aged terribly. Jones himself isn’t even willing to defend it these days. “The thing that drove The Fugitive was that we weren’t chasing just a normal doctor,” he told Rolling Stone in our 2023 oral history of The Fugitive. “Whatever we were doing, we were chasing Harrison Ford, and I think he was the engine of the movie. With U.S. Marshals, we had a different director, had a different approach, and it just wasn’t … the movie wasn’t as good as The Fugitive. ” It’s impossible to argue with that. 

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)

The Star Trek film franchise got off to an extremely shaky start with the snoozefest that is 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which just made 1982’s Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan all the more stunning. Star Trek III: The Search For Spock was a minor letdown in 1984, but words can barely describe our love for 1986’s Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. That’s the bonkers time-travel one with the whales that’s as fun to watch the 200th time as the first. Leonard Nimoy was given the chance to direct that one, which is why William Shatner demanded the director’s chair for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. It’s about the search for God at the center of the universe and an evil Vulcan named Sybok, but it barely matters. Nothing about the movie works, especially the cringe scene of Spock, Kirk, and Bones singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” around a campfire. It was such a fiasco that 1991’s Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was designed as a farewell to the OG cast. 

Caddyshack 2 (1988)

Imagine a version of Caddyshack without Bill Murray, Rodney Dangerfield, Lacey Underdall, a single quotable line or even a single laugh. Whatever comes to mind is surely nowhere near as horrid as Caddyshack 2. Chevy Chase is the only returning cast member, and he’s joined by Robert Stack, Randy Quaid, Dyan Cannon, Chyna Phillips, and Dan Aykroyd in the thankless Bill Murray role as the groundskeeper. That’s a good cast, but they can’t save this terrible movie about a millionaire buying the country club and turning it into an amusement park. Original Caddyshack director Harold Ramis is credited as a co-writer, but he denounced the movie in later years and said he nearly had his name removed. The ultimate red flag here is that Dangerfield deemed this movie beneath his standards. This is a man (albeit a comic genius) that took parts in Meet Wally Sparks, My 5 Wives, and The 4th Tenor. He was willing to accept almost any role that put him on the big screen, but not Caddyshack 2. It was the right move. Nothing could have saved Caddyshack 2, not even Rodney. 

Halloween Kills (2021)

The original Halloween, in 1978, is a horror classic that paved the way for A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and many other slasher films of the Eighties. But much like the franchises it spawned, Halloween begat sequel after sequel that fell flat in profound ways. A miracle happened in 2018 when Jamie Lee Curtis returned to the fold for Halloween, which ignored every film after the first one, and managed to create genuine chills by showing a grizzled, gray-haired Laurie Strode battling Michael Meyers yet again. They should have left it there. The 2021 sequel isolates Strode in a hospital room for much of the movie while Meyers wanders through the town of Haddonfield on yet another killing spree. Familiar faces from the original movie show up, including Kyle Richards from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, who acted in the first movie as a child. But the whole thing feels like a tired, pointless rerun. It was also designed to set up a third and final movie, 2022’s Halloween Ends, but they should have learned the lesson of the first movie. You can’t just keep redoing these things over and over. More important, a movie should stand on its own. It shouldn’t feel like connective tissue between two others.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)

Future film historians will have real fun trying to pinpoint the exact moment the Marvel Cinematic Universe jumped the shark. Some will point to Eternals in 2021, Thor: Love and Thunder in 2022, or Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness that same year. But it’s a safe bet that 2023’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania will be mentioned many times. Marvel was pounding out content at a furious clip when the movie went into production, and resources were spread way too thin across numerous TV shows and movies. Postproduction was rushed on this third Ant-Man movie, and the special-effects team was focused on wrapping up Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. The result was a movie that literally didn’t look finished when it hit theaters. When you throw in a confusing, tired plot about Ant-Man and his family accidentally entering the “Quantum Realm” (ask your 11-year-old nephew what that means), you’ve got a real mess on your hands. “Everyone just kind of wanders through this movie — through its elaborate, colorful, cluttered, psychedelic-album-cover-style environments,” wrote New York critic Bilge Ebiri. “They occasionally crack jokes or cross their arms. Nothing seems to match. If you told me that the actors had been shot before the filmmakers decided what they would be looking at or interacting with, I’d believe you.”

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1 (2014)

The Harry Potter franchise set a very bad precedent when the final book in the series was turned into two movies. This was justifiable in the Potter case, since that’s a 607-page book that would have been tough to boil down to one satisfying movie. But it made no narrative sense whatsoever to take the 390-page Mockingjay, the final Hunger Games novel, and stretch it into two movies. The first one clocks in at an agonizing 123 minutes, where very little happens of any real importance. Katniss and her buddies enter an underground district and prepare for a grand revolution, but it’s all just a setup for the second chapter. (There’s also the problem that this is a Hunger Games movie where we don’t get the payoff of an actual Hunger Games.) The movie was a hit and critics were once again impressed by the performance of Jennifer Lawrence, but even director Francis Lawrence says it was wrong to make two movies out of one book. “What I realized in retrospect — and after hearing all the reactions and feeling the kind of wrath of fans, critics, and people at the split — is that I realized it was frustrating,” he told People in 2023. “And I can understand it.… I totally regret [splitting the movies]. I totally do. I’m not sure everybody does, but I definitely do.”

The Godfather Part III (1990)

It would be deeply unfair to put the third Godfather movie on a list of the 50 worst sequels in Hollywood history. It’s a much better film than its reputation suggests, and placing it alongside Alien vs. Predator or Weekend at Bernie’s 2 would be cruel. It also has perhaps the most quoted line (“Just when I thought I was out … they pull me back in”) in any Godfather movie. But this is a list of disappointing sequels, and expectations for this movie were just off the charts. The Godfather is arguably the greatest movie in history. The Godfather II is inarguably the greatest sequel in history. There was no way a third film that came 16 years after the second one would do anything but disappoint. The fact that Robert Duvall backed out over a salary dispute, and Winona Ryder quit shortly before filming, causing director Francis Ford Coppola to give his teenager daughter Sophia a key role, didn’t help matters much. The movie still reunited Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, and Talie Shire with director Coppola, and grossed $137 million, but to call it anything short of a disappointment would be wrong.

Jaws 2 (1978)

Jaws 2 has one of the greatest taglines in history: “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water …” That’s just about the only memorable thing about the movie, which is about another killer shark descending on Amity Island that Roy Scheider is forced to battle. This time around, it nearly kills his son before he electrocutes it and once again saves the town. (Does work like this really fall under the jurisdiction of the police chief?) Steven Spielberg was too busy working on Close Encounters of the Third Kind to direct it, but he also had little desire to head back into the water after all the difficulties he faced making the first one. He also knew that topping it would be impossible. To be very clear, the third and fourth Jaws movies were significantly worse. Jaws 2 fails in rather pedestrian ways. Jaws 3-D and Jaws: The Revenge fail in spectacularly inept (and often hysterical) ways. But nobody walked into either of those movies thinking they were seeing any sort of masterpiece. People had high hopes for Jaws 2, and they left deeply disappointed. 

Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000)

The 1999 film calendar was crammed with so many remarkable movies that many critics are now calling it one of the single greatest years in Hollywood history. And even in the middle of all of that brilliance, The Blair Witch Project stood out. The “found footage” horror movie was shot on a microbudget of just $60,000, but still managed to scare the living shit out of everyone who saw it. A sequel was inevitable. Sadly, it completely disregarded the DIY feel of the original, along with anything that felt even remotely original despite being directed by Paradise Lost creator Joe Berlinger. We instead get a very traditional horror flick about a group of Blair Witch Project fans who head to the site of the first movie, Burkittsville, Maryland, and find themselves battling an evil force. “ Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 is a not a very lucid piece of filmmaking (and contains no Book of Shadows ),” wrote Roger Ebert. “I suppose it seems clear enough to Berlinger, who co-wrote it and helped edit it, but one viewing is not enough to make the material clear, and the material is not intriguing enough, alas, to inspire a second viewing.”

Live Free or Die Hard (2007)

Die Hard: With a Vengeance is one of the greatest threequels in the history of action movies, largely because they brought back original Die Hard director John McTiernan after leaving him out of the underwhelming second movie. A fourth movie didn’t materialize for another 12 years. This time around, Underworld director Les Wiseman was at the helm. He was working with a ridiculous script where John McClane battles a cyberterrorist in Washington, D.C. Bruce Willis practically has superpowers in it. At one moment, he destroys a flying helicopter by driving a car into it. It’s so ridiculous that even Michael Scott on The Office couldn’t enjoy it. “Here’s the thing about Die Hard 4, ” he said in one episode. “ Die Hard 1, the original, John McClain is just this normal guy, you know? He’s just a normal New York City cop who gets his feet cut, he gets beat up. But he’s an everyday guy. In Die Hard 4, he is jumping a motorcycle into a helicopter in the air. You know? He’s invincible. It’s just sort of lost from Die Hard 1. It’s not Terminator. ” For once, Michael Scott is completely right. 

Major League II (1994)

Creating a sequel to Major League wasn’t a crazy idea. We never even saw the misfit group of Cleveland Indians play in the World Series in the original movie, which remains one of the best sports films in history. And Major League II did manage to reunite the original cast, with the sole exception of Wesley Snipes, who was replaced by Omar Epps. The crazy idea of Major League II was downgrading the R rating from the original all the way to PG. It neutered the characters in every way possible. Who wants a Ricky “Wild Thing” Vaughn who can’t swear? You want to hear “locker-room talk” in the locker room. The movie also felt like a bland rehash of the original. “There has rarely been such a steep and strange decline between a movie and its sequel as the one between the fast, silly original and the dismal, boring Major League II, ” Caryn James wrote in The New York Times. “While the first film ran riot with baseball cliches, this one plods along and almost takes them seriously.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)

In 2003, Disney somehow turned its Mad Men -era Pirates of the Caribbean theme-park attraction into a Johnny Depp movie that grossed more than $650 million. The first two sequels racked up an astonishing $1 billion each, and earned surprisingly respectable reviews, considering the source material. But director Gore Verbinski stepped aside for the fourth movie in favor of Rob Marshall, though it’s slightly unfair to blame him for the bloated, painfully unfunny mess that is Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. The franchise simply ran out of gas at this point, and no amount of special-effects wizardry was going to change that. “Its pleasures are so meager, its delight in its own inventions so forced and false, that it becomes almost the perfect opposite of entertainment,” wrote A.O. Scott in The New York Times. “To insist otherwise is a variation on the sunk-cost fallacy. Since you exchanged money for fun, fun is surely what you must have purchased, and you may cling to that idea in the face of contrary evidence. But trust me on this: This movie would be a rip-off even if someone paid you to see it.”

More American Graffiti (1979)

The original American Graffiti, in 1973, was such a colossal pop-culture force that it somehow gave the world Happy Days, Star Wars, and the entire concept of rock & roll oldies. (We’re only slightly exaggerating here.) The George Lucas film took place during one very long night in 1962, but the 1979 sequel, written and directed by Bill Norton, is spread across four New Year’s Eves between 1964 and 1967. Nearly the entire cast, except Richard Dreyfuss, returned from the original (there’s even a Harrison Ford cameo), but the story leaps erratically back and forth through time, sometimes using split screens, and it’s very hard to follow. It also simply lacks the fun and innocence of the first one. Unsurprisingly, it was also a huge box-office bomb that marked the end of Ron Howard’s acting career.

Coming 2 America (2021)

Eddie Murphy spent decades resisting calls to make a sequel to 1988’s Coming to America before finally surrendering in 2021. It was a mistake. The movie is so desperate to evoke nostalgia by bringing back characters, set pieces, and sight gags from the original that it fails to tell a compelling story of its own. Yes, there’s a thin plot about Murphy coming back to Queens, New York, in search of his lost son, but it’s just an excuse for Murphy to lather on latex and makeup to play the old men in the barber shop that are somehow still alive. The scenes back in the fake African nation of Zamunda are even less effective. It’s briefly fun to see Murphy, Arsenio Hall, and the old gang back together, but how many of you watched it even a single time after the first viewing? Be honest. 

Wonder Woman: 1984 (2020)

The problem with Wonder Woman: 1984 isn’t the cast or even the director. Patty Jenkins, Gal Gadot, Chris Prine, Kristen Wiig, Pedro Pascal, and Robin Wright are all capable of remarkable work. And the first Wonder Woman movie in 2017 is one of the great superhero movies of the past decade. And the problem isn’t even the decision to move the action from World War I to the Reagan decade. That was clever since it opened up so many creative possibilities for the narrative. The problem is the script, which finds Wonder Woman working at the Smithsonian, where she comes across an ancient artifact that grants wishes. This causes her co-worker to transform herself into an evil cheetah, and grants a twisted businessman immense power. This is all much cheesier than it even sounds. The movie hit near the peak of Covid, and most people saw it on Max instead of the big screen. The reaction was not kind, to put it mildly. “Three years ago, Wonder Woman emerged amid a reckoning on male abuse and power; the timing was coincidental, but it also made the character feel meaningful,” Manohla Dargis wrote in The New York Times. “In 2017, when Wonder Woman was done saving the world, her horizons seemed limitless. I didn’t expect that her next big adult battle would be at the mall.”

Zoolander 2 (2016)

The temptation for Ben Stiller to film a Zoolander sequel must have been intense. The 2001 fashion-industry spoof wasn’t a huge commercial or critical hit, but that was largely because it had the misfortune of landing in theaters just weeks after 9/11. We weren’t exactly in a laughing mood at the time. A giant cult of Zoolander fans emerged in the years that followed, but what they really just wanted to do was watch it over and over, sprinkle quotes into everyday conversation, and attend the occasional midnight screening. They didn’t want a second one packed with more celebrity cameos than actual jokes, and endless callbacks to the original. “There are some clever bits, and the satire is at times scathing,” wrote film critic James Berardinelli, “but, on the whole, moments of hilarity are like oases in a desert of tedium.” 

Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)

After years of shoddy odd-numbered Star Trek films, fans hoped for a new pattern once the Next Generation crew took over in the mid-Nineties. Their hopes were raised with the release of 1996’s Star Trek: First Contact, which is one of the greatest science-fiction movies of the Nineties. But then came the crushing disappointment of 1998’s Star Trek: Insurrection . Captain Picard and the gang were back together, and Jonathan Frakes was once again directing, but the movie was an enormous step backward. The story centers around the Federation’s attempt to displace the population of a peaceful planet that had discovered a way to live forever. This would have been an interesting two-part episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, but it simply didn’t feel like a movie. “ Insurrection is a muddled, gimpy mess, filled with the worst sort of Trek clichés and ill-timed humorous outbursts,” Marc Salvov wrote in The Austin Chronicle . “On top of that, the film might as well have been edited by Mr. Scott in the midst of a Romulan-ale bender: Plot points appear out of nowhere, and voluminous backstory seems to have been dropped in favor of bigger, better explosions and forehead-slappingly bad double entendres. Is this Star Trek or Friends in Space ?”

City Slickers 2: The Legend of Curly’s Gold (1994)

Babaloo Mandel and Lowell Ganz are a brilliant writing duo that gave the world A League of Their Own, Parenthood, Splash, Spies Like Us, and Mr. Saturday Night . “We’ve done one sequel in our entire career,” Ganz told Rolling Stone in 2022. “That’s City Slickers . And the reason we don’t do more is we put our characters where we want them to be.” Mandel framed the issue in a more concise way: “The story is over. It’s done.” The story of City Slickers was definitely over after the events of the first movie, but it was such a giant hit that they were coaxed into writing a sequel. It finds Billy Crystal and Daniel Stern back on horses in the West on a mission to find lost gold. (Bruno Kirby had the good sense to avoid this one. He was essentially replaced by Jon Lovitz.) And even though Jack Palance’s Curly character dies in the original City Slickers, he returns in this one as Curly’s brother Duke. “What I missed was the rich humor and the human comedy of the original film — where the people, not the plot, were what mattered,” Roger Eberot wrote. “By the end of the film, with Slickers II also borrowing from the Indiana Jones movies, I was overcome with deja vu and indifference.”

Blues Brothers 2000 (1998)

There are a lot of problems with Blues Brothers 2000, starting with the fact that John Belushi died 16 years before it came out. That’s an insurmountable issue that should have ended any talk of a sequel. But Dan Aykroyd’s never come across a franchise he isn’t willing to drive into the ground. And if he was willing to participate in My Girl 2, five Ghostbusters (and counting) movies, and even (shudder) Caddyshack 2, he was certainly down to try and revive The Blues Brothers in 1998 with help from John Goodman, Joe Morton, and child actor J. Evan Bonifant. They were joined by a truly impressive lineup of musical icons, including Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Bo Diddley, Isaac Hayes, Eric Clapton, Dr. John, and many, many others. It could be the greatest assemblage of musical talent ever to appear on film. But it’s not enough to make Blues Brothers 2000 a watchable movie. It’s about Elwood Blues getting out of prison and putting the band back together, but it just feels sad and pointless without Jake by his side. 

Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)

Independence Day was the highest grossing movie of 1996, raking in more than $800 million. It was also an incredibly fun popcorn movie as long as you don’t spend too much time thinking about the fact mankind foiled an alien invasion by uploading a virus to their ship’s mainframe from a rinky-dink Windows 95-era laptop. (The aliens mastered interstellar travel, but they didn’t have even rudimentary virus protection? How did these computer systems even line up in the first place?) Rumors of a sequel swirled for years, but Will Smith wanted such a colossal payday they eventually moved forward without him for 2011’s Independence Day: Resurgence . They did manage to bring back Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Judd Hirsch, Brent Spiner, and Vivica A. Fox, but what they didn’t have was an original idea. The aliens return. The world unites against them. Pullman gives another inspiring speech through a bullhorn. Yawn. If this movie hit in 1999 or so, it would have likely been a huge hit. But we had to wait 15 years for this thing. By that point, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was in full swing. It made this limp Independence Day retread feel very tired and just wildly unnecessary. 

Cars 2 (2011)

The original Cars is basically Doc Hollywood in a bizarre, post-human world where cars are talking, autonomous beings. They should have ripped off another great movie for the sequel, which sends Lightning McQueen and his team to Europe to compete in the World Grand Prix. Along the way, they get entangled with some British spies. The whole thing reeks like a quickie cash-grab designed to sell toy cars. It’s one of the few Pixar movies to have a “rotten” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. “Will your kids have fun?” Logan Hill asked in his Vulture review. “Sure, though the green-energy subplot is too intricate. As for the parents, politically, it feels like a focus-grouped cop-out. Lefties will be flattered by the cars’ environmental ideals; conservatives will cheer when it turns out that green energy doesn’t work. Worry not, Disney shareholders: No automotive cross-branding opportunity was risked.” (The movie never explains what happened to the humans in the Cars universe. The cars clearly went Terminator and killed them all when they became self-aware, right?)

Terminator: Salvation (2009)

There’s something about The Terminator that keeps bringing people back into the theaters despite the plainly obvious fact that the series simply cannot work without James Cameron. And as much as Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines disappointed the Terminator faithful, it at least had Arnold Schwarzenegger and a powerful ending that gave the series somewhere to build toward. The nuclear holocaust was here, and now John Connor had to lead the resistance. That’s a premise for a pretty great movie. But 2009’s Terminator: Salvation was nothing even remotely great, despite casting Christian Bale as the newest John Connor. Arnold was busy serving as the governor of California at the time, and there’s not a single actor in it from the previous movies. It’s about the early days of Connor’s leadership during the war against Skynet. Lots of things blow up. There are chases. It’s all just an endless green screen of blah. An infamous audio leak from the set revealed that Bale had a complete meltdown at one point and chewed out director McG and members of the crew when a take was interrupted. “Am I going to walk around and rip your fucking lights down, in the middle of a scene?” he roars. “Then why the fuck are you walking right through like this in the background. What the fuck is it with you? Give me a fucking answer!” This audio was 100 times more entertaining than any moment in Salvation . 

Superman 4 (1987)

It’s tempting to put Superman 3 on this list since it’s such an oddball outlier in the history of the franchise, but there’s a certain goofy charm to the movie. Throwing Richard Pryor into the world of Metropolis as a computer genius still makes us chuckle. But there’s nothing even remotely amusing about 1987’s Superman IV: The Quest for Peace . It’s a shockingly inept movie about Superman trying to rid the world of atomic weapons, and battling the foe Nuclear Man. The film was shot on a shoestring budget, and that’s clear in every single frame. It’s hard to believe the original film came out less than 10 years prior. “The script of Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal contains neither bite nor gleam, and the movie has no propulsion,” wrote Michael Wilmington of the Los Angles Times . “By the end, the editing takes on a meat-ax fervor, as [one character] disappears mysteriously and the loose ends are given a violently perfunctory last-second wrap-up. The overall effect is of a story atomized and dying before our eyes, collapsing into smashed pulp, ground down into big-budget Kryptonite ash.” The film was such a disaster that it wasn’t until 2006 that another Superman movie hit theaters. It was a direct sequel to the original two Superman movies, and pretended like Superman 4 didn’t exist. Sadly for us, it does exist. 

Sex and the City 2 (2010)

The temptation in sequels is often to move the action to an exotic overseas location since it opens up all sorts of new storytelling possibilities. The Hangover 2 (Bangkok), Oceans 12 (Amsterdam, Paris, Rome), Cars 2 (France, Italy, England), The Karate Kid 2 (Okinawa), and National Lampoon’s European Vacation (Europe, duh) are just a few of the examples. And in the second Sex and the City movie, Carrie Bradshaw and her friends take an extended trip to Abu Dhabi, though they actually filmed it in Morocco. It’s part of an absurdly bloated two and a half hour movie where the four ladies deal with professional and personal dilemmas, discover the power of friendship for the 600th time, and wear designer outfits that must have collectively cost them about $18 million. The whole thing is so abysmal and boring that even hardore Sex and the City fans rarely defend it. It sent the series onto life support before it came back to Max as the 99.9 percent Kim Cattrall-free …And Just Like That in 2022. 

Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021)

Is Michael Jordan the GOAT in the NBA, or is it LeBron James? It’s a basketball debate that’s likely to rage for eternity. Both sides have very strong arguments to make in terms of total points scored or the number of championship rings they wear. When it comes to their Space Jam movies, however, it isn’t really a contest. Jordan made a very fun live-action/animated Warner Bros. movie back in 1996. And James delivered a turkey of a sequel in 2021, where the Lakers great and his fictional son Dominic find themselves trapped in the Warner Bros. Serververse. They come into contact with all sorts of studio IP, including Rick and Morty, The Wizard of Oz, Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and King Kong, but the whole thing feels more like a Warner Bros. shareholders presentation than a movie. When it comes time for the big basketball game, it’s hard to even care. “It is a film that has no reason to exist,” wrote Alex Shepherd in The New Republic, “except as a vehicle for reminding people that various pieces of content, all of them merchandisable, are available for instant streaming now.”

Rocky V (1990)

The first four Rocky movies followed a familiar formula. A powerful opponent challenges Rocky Balboa to a boxing match, his devoted wife, Adrian, expresses some doubts (“You can’t win, Rocky!”), he furiously trains, and the film climaxes with the fight. In 1990’s Rocky V, however, the formula was completely upended. It begins with the Balboa family losing all of their money after Rocky is diagnosed with a brain disorder that makes it impossible for him to fight. They move back to Philadelphia, and Rocky trains a young fighter named Tommy Gunn. It ends with Rocky and Gunn briefly fighting in the street, but audiences were less than thrilled. The movie didn’t capture the heart of the original Rocky or the cheeseball joy of the sequels. “The dramatic moves are so obvious and shopworn,” wrote the Chicago Reader ’s Jonathan Rosenbaum, “that not even the star’s mournful basset-hound expressions can redeem them.” It would be another 16 years before Stallone was given the green light on another Rocky movie. That one ends with Balboa back in the ring even though Stallone was 60-years-old by that point. It’s also an infinitely better movie than Rocky V . 

Revenge of the Nerds 2: Nerds in Paradise (1987)

The insane success of Animal House inspired roughly 100 knockoff movies about wild college campuses. The best of the bunch, by far, is 1984’s Revenge of the Nerds . This one twists the formula by casting nerds as the heroes, and the cool frat boys as villains. It’s hysterical and infinitely rewatchable. (And, yes, there’s a heinous scene near the end where one of the nerds dresses up in a jock’s costume and fools his girlfriend into having sex with him.) The sequel was unable to bring Anthony Edwards back for anything more than a cameo (he made a little film called Top Gun the prior year), but the rest of the cast is back for a movie that takes them down to Florida for a frat convention where they once again battle evil jocks. But it’s rated PG-13, when the original was a very hard R. That means the jokes are much softer, and the laughs never come. The only positive thing we can say about it is the made-for-TV sequels are even worse. 

Batman and Robin (1997)

The Batman franchise was already in serious decline by the time 1997’s Batman and Robin came around. Michael Keaton handed over the Batsuit to Val Kilmer for 1995’s Batman Forever, and Tim Burton ceded his director’s chair to Joel Schumacher. The result was a less-than-stellar movie, especially when compared to the dark brilliance of Batman Returns, but Jim Carrey’s manic energy as the Riddler (along with great songs by U2 and Seal) prevented it from being a total train wreck. Nothing could have prepared us, however, for the horrors of Batman and Robin . George Clooney is the Dark Knight in this one, and he battles Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze, and Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy. He’s joined by not only Chris O’Donnell as Robin, but Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl. It’s a clusterfuck of characters, plot incoherence, and cheeseball, pun-filled dialogue straight out of a McBain movie (“It’s ice to see you”; “Let’s kick some ice.”) Nearly every person involved with the movie condemned it in the years that followed, especially Clooney. “It’s a terrible screenplay,” he told Howard Stern in 2020. “I’m terrible in it. Joel Schumacher, who just passed away, directed it, and he’d say, ‘Yeah, it didn’t work.’ We all whiffed on that one.”

Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)

It wasn’t until the Seventies that hit movies routinely generated sequels. That’s why we have The Godfather II, Jaws II, Rocky II, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, and many others. The astronomical success of The Exorcist in 1973 guaranteed a follow-up chapter. But Exorcist novelist William Peter Blatty and original movie director William Friedkin didn’t want to be involved in 1978’s Exorcist II: The Heretic since they were in the midst of a lawsuit with the studio over profits from the first one. The studio did manage to bring back Linda Blair and Max von Sydow, but that wasn’t nearly enough to salvage this low-budget trainwreck of a movie where poor Regan, now a teenager, deals with the aftermath of the demonic possession from the first movie. “There had to be a sequel,” wrote Vinceny Canby in The New York Times, “but did it have to be this desperate concoction, the main thrust of which is that the original exorcism wasn’t all it was cracked up to be?”

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)

After the stunning ineptitude of 2009’s Terminator: Salvation, the franchise bounced back to “somewhat watchable” status with 2015’s Terminator Genisys . The critics disagree with us here, and it’s not like Genisys is a masterpiece, but at least it was a little fun. (It wasn’t nearly as enjoyable as the criminally underrated 2008-09 Fox series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles .) And when news hit that Linda Hamilton was finally returning to play Sarah Connor in 2015’s The Terminator: Dark Fate, it was hard not to feel genuine excitement. James Cameron signed on as producer. Hope was in the air. Then we saw the actual movie. In the first few minutes, a de-aged Hamilton watches a teenage John Connor get killed by a Terminator shortly after the events of T2, basically nullifying the entire movie. We flash-forward several years, and Skynet is at its old tricks again. It has sent yet another robot back in time. A grizzled Connor has to protect people that will be pivotal in the future. They meet up with an elderly Arnold, who once again helps them survive. We’ve seen this many times before. Once the thrill of seeing Hamilton in her badass Sarah Connor mode wears off, this becomes just another rote action movie. There’s been talk of another Terminator reboot, but let’s hope it doesn’t happen. Haven’t we all suffered enough at this point? 

The Hangover 3 (2013)

The third Hangover ditches the premise of the first two movies where four buddies have a debauched night on the town, wake up without any memories of it, and try to retrace their steps to find someone they lost along the way. It was insane enough this happened a second time, but moving the action from Las Vegas to Bangkok in the sequel was clever and occasionally quite funny. In the third one, they head back to Sin City for an adventure that’s heavy on plot and action, but very light on actual laughs. It also gives Ken Jeong a much bigger role than he had in the first two, but a little bit of his psychotic Leslie Chow character goes a very long way. And bringing everything back to Vegas just reminded us of the superiority of the first movie. “The second didn’t have to be funny, and wasn’t, but at least existed somewhere in the general vicinity of that borderless country known as Comedy,” Rick Groen wrote in The Globe and Mail . “Part Three doesn’t, not even remotely, which makes it not just bad, but weirdly, fascinatingly bad. What exactly is this? Certainly a cash cow, definitely an exercise in cynicism, maybe even a cri de coeur from the self-hating principals. Whatever, a comedy it ain’t.”

A Good Day to Die Hard (2013)

Live Free or Die Hard is not a good movie by any standard. But it’s practically Raiders of the Lost Ark compared to the flaming pile of dog shit that is 2013’s A Good Day to Die Hard . There’s no pretext that John McClane is a regular human being in this one. He’s a superhero that couldn’t be killed by conventional or even unconventional weapons. The plot barely matters, but it revolves around an ill-fated trip to Russia where he teams up with his son, played by Jai Courtney, and fights all sorts of evil dudes. They visit Chernobyl, fire off about 10,000 rounds of ammo, and a helicopter flies into a building. Bruce Willis says, “ Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!” and everyone laughs because it reminds them of better Die Hard movies. There was talk of a sixth Die Hard for years, but that’s impossible now that Willis is retired from acting. Tragically, the franchise ended with A Good Day to Die Hard . The best thing we can do now is pretend the last two Die Hard movies were just bad dreams McClane had in the final years of his life. 

Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997)

Keanu Reeves isn’t opposed to signing on for sequels. He’s made four Matrix movies, four John Wicks, and three Bill and Ted’s . But when the makers of Speed 2: Cruise Control came to him, he had some doubts. “It was just a situation in life where I got the script and I read the script and I was like, ‘Ugh,’” Reeves recalled to Jimmy Kimmel in 2015. “It was about a cruise ship, and I was thinking, ‘A bus, a cruise ship.… Speed, bus, but then a cruise ship is even slower than a bus, and I was like, ‘I love you guys, but I just can’t do it.’” They carried forward with Jason Patrick essentially in the Reeves role, but it was a mistake. Reeves was 100 percent right to realize that a speeding cruise ship simply isn’t very scary. The film was a critical fiasco that forever killed the franchise and was nominated for eight Golden Raspberry awards. This was a good lesson. If Keanu Reeves thinks your movie is dumb, don’t do it. He knows what he’s talking about. 

Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

The initial expectations for Star Trek: Nemesis were very high. Fans were desperate to see the Next Generation cast after a four-year hiatus, and they were returning in an even-numbered movie. The ironclad rule up to that point was that the even-numbered Trek films were all great. Tragically, the streak ended with Star Trek: Nemesis in spectacular fashion. The enemy this time around is Shinzon, a young clone of Picard (played by Tom Hardy) that took over the Romulan empire. (Pay no attention to the fact that Hardy doesn’t look a damn thing like Patrick Stewart at any age.) At the climax of the movie, Data sacrifices himself to save Picard. That’s probably the only moment anyone that saw Nemesis in the theater can recall. The rest is a boring blur of cheesy special effects and dialogue that reads like it was written by ChatGPT. What went wrong? “The director was an idiot,” said Counselor Troi actress Marina Sirtis. “I guess that’s a fair assessment of someone that wasn’t willing to take advantage of the help he was offered.” The movie was such a bomb that TNG never appeared on the big screen again. Thankfully, they returned for the Paramount+ show Star Trek: Picard in 2020. In a clear acknowledgement that Nemesis was a complete turd, they gave Data another death scene. 

Dumb and Dumber To (2014)

Comedy sequels are notoriously hard to pull off. For every successful attempt like Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey or Addams Family Values, you have 50 fiascos like Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment or Meet the Fockers . We won’t list either of those films on this list since no reasonable person expected them to be any good. That’s not the case for Dumb and Dumber To, which reunited Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels with directors Peter and Bobby Farrell 20 years after the original Dumb and Dumber . The moronic duo of Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne travel cross country again in this one, but this time they’re searching for Dunne’s lost daughter. After the initial thrill of seeing Carey and Daniels back in character wears off, it becomes clear a Dumb and Dumber sequel is way better as an idea than an actual movie. It’s also so shockingly unfunny it almost makes you question the value of the first one. But don’t do that. The first one is one of the funniest movies of the Nineties. It’s Jim Carrey at his absolute peak. Dumb and Dumber To is a sad retread. 

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

It may be slightly hard to remember now, but there was enormous excitement surrounding Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull back in 2008. We’d waited through 19 very long Indy-free years at this point, and we finally had Harrison Ford back in his fedora with Steven Spielberg in the director’s chair. They even brought in Karen Allen to reprise her role as Marion Ravenwood from Raiders of the Lost Ark . They also brought in Shia LaBeouf as Indy’s greaser son, Mutt, Cate Blanchett as an evil Soviet, a muddled plot about KGB agents and extraterrestrial life, and sequences where Mutt swings from vines like Tarzan and Indy survives a nuclear blast in a refrigerator. It simply doesn’t cohere into a fun movie that can remotely compare to the first three. “Reckless daring is what’s missing from Crystal Skull, ” David Denby wrote in The New Yorker . “The movie leaves a faint aura of depression, because you don’t want to think of daring as the exclusive property of youth. There must be a way for middle-aged men to take chances and leap over chasms, but repeating themselves with less conviction isn’t it.”

Highlander II: The Quickening (1991)

If you were at least a somewhat dorky teenager in the Eighties or Nineties, you probably have fond memories of the first Highlander movie. It stars Christopher Lambert as an immortal being from the 16th-century Scottish Highlands who battles other immortals in mid-Eighties New York City. The 1991 sequel, Highlander II: The Quickening, roped Sean Connery back into the saga, and holy mother of God, it is an unholy mess. Not only does it completely violate established Highlander canon by transforming the immortals into aliens from another planet, it was filmed on the cheap in Argentina, and director Russell Mulcahy was removed from the postproduction process so the producers could totally butcher his original (admittedly flawed) vision. It often ranks very high on lists of the worst movies in history. “ Highlander II: The Quickening is the most hilariously incomprehensible movie I’ve seen in many a long day — a movie almost awesome in its badness,” wrote Roger Ebert. “Wherever science-fiction fans gather, in decades and generations to come, this film will be remembered in hushed tones as one of the immortal low points of the genre.”

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

Being a Star Wars fan means dealing with a lot of bitter disappointment. This is a franchise with 12 movies, of which only about four or five are universally loved. Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace is often cited as the low point, but we’re not counting prequels on this list. (It’s also not quite as awful as the lore suggests. Watch it again with an open mind.) But the biggest disappointment in Star Wars history came in 2019 with the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker . After 42 years and 50 bazillion hours of fevered fan speculation, the world was finally seeing the (supposed) conclusion of the Skywalker saga. This was going to be the one that resolved all of the lingering issues, gave our heroes one last adventure, and ended the franchise on a perfectly satisfying note. Things got off to a bad start in the opening crawl when we learned Emperor Palpatine was back in the picture, which is something they never bothered to explain beyond Poe’s infamous “somehow Palpatine returned” line midway through the film. And after the prior film told us that Rey came from a humble background, meaning anyone could rise from obscurity and become a Jedi, we learn she’s actually a Palpatine. It was one of many ways that returning director J.J. Abrams tried to nullify Rian Johnson’s work on The Last Jedi . We spend time with Luke Skywalker as a force ghost, Han Solo as some other sort of apparition, Princess Leah via clumsily edited archival footage, Chewie, R2D2, C-3PO, and even Lando Calrissian, but nothing feels satisfying about any of it. It just feels like a bunch of random Star Wars images and characters thrown into a blender. It still earned more than $1 billion, but the reaction was so abysmal that Disney radically switched course and put all of its Star Wars energy into TV shows. We’re heard endless reports and rumors about additional movies, but none of them have actually gone into production. Something has to happen eventually. The Star Wars cinematic experience can’t forever end on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker . Somehow Star Wars has to return. 

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The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to Netflix in July

This month brings the arrival of “Lost” and the return of Eddie Murphy as Axel Foley.

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By Noel Murray

Every month, Netflix adds movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of July’s most promising new titles. (Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here .)

‘Lost’ Seasons 1-6

Starts streaming: July 1

This enormously entertaining and frequently surprising science-fiction epic comes back to Netflix, just in time for the 20th anniversary of its debut episode. What begins as a story about a seemingly random group of airline passengers crash-landing on an uncharted island grows over the course of six seasons into a centuries-spanning saga, as the castaways stumble across the mysteries and history of their strange and dangerous new home. An innovative flashback structure balances on-island adventure with smaller stories about these people’s lives before they crashed. “Lost” works as both a rich character-driven drama and an addicting puzzle, littered with clues and curiosities. It will be interesting to see if a new generation of fans becomes as obsessed as TV watchers were in the early 2000s — and if they argue just as much about the way the show ends.

‘Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F’

Starts streaming: July 3

Arriving 30 years after “Beverly Hills Cop III,” this long-gestating sequel sees Eddie Murphy return to one of his most memorable roles: Axel Foley, the savvy and wisecracking Detroit policeman who somehow keeps finding himself back in Los Angeles, solving crimes. In “Axel F,” the old-school action hero shows up to help out his estranged daughter, Jane (Taylour Paige), a defense attorney whose life may be in danger. While working alongside Jane’s ex-boyfriend, Detective Bobby Abbott (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Foley runs into a lot of old friends, including Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold), John Taggart (John Ashton), Jeffrey Friedman (Paul Reiser) and Serge (Bronson Pinchot). The movie is being pitched as a full-scale 1980s throwback, with big stunts and R-rated jokes.

‘Cobra Kai’ Season 6, Part 1

Starts streaming: July 18

The sequel series to “The Karate Kid” movie franchise is coming to an end, with a season divided into three parts, starting with five episodes in July. “Cobra Kai” started as a simple twist on the original 1984 film, turning its jerky villain Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) into more of an underdog and its hero, Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio), into someone out of touch with his humble roots. As the series has gone on, these characters — and their children, who also compete in martial arts tournaments — have evolved in ways that make their motivations and relationships more complex. The story has expanded to encompass more parts of the “Karate Kid” mythology, but it has remained a surprisingly sensitive look at how people overcome the family histories and socioeconomic circumstances that initially shape them.

‘Skywalkers: A Love Story’

Starts streaming: July 19

Acrophobes should probably clear of this dizzying documentary, about a pair of famous Russian “roof-toppers” who climb as high as they can onto towering buildings then take pictures to preserve the achievement. Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus fell in love while pursuing this passion for extreme climbing. When their relationship started to falter, they tried rekindling the romance by making plans to break into the upper floors of the world’s second-tallest skyscraper, in Kuala Lumpur. Because Nikolau and Beerkus have documented and shared so many of their adventures on social media, the “Skywalkers” director, Jeff Zimbalist, and his co-director, Maria Bukhonina, have ample footage to work with. They tell a story that is partly about a risky act of criminal trespass and partly about a couple who have to learn to trust each other in order to survive their big stunt.

‘The Decameron’ Season 1

Starts streaming: July 25

Based loosely on Giovanni Boccaccio’s influential 14th-century story collection, “The Decameron” is set in Florence during the time of the Black Plague and follows an eclectic group of aristocrats and their servants as they shelter from the pestilence at a rural villa. Created by Kathleen Jordan (best known for the wry satire “Teenage Bounty Hunters”), the mini-series features a cast of distinctive comic actors, including Zosia Mamet (“Girls”), Tanya Reynolds (“Sex Education”), Saoirse-Monica Jackson (“Derry Girls”) and Tony Hale (“Arrested Development”). Rather than the wide-ranging anthology format of the book, this version covers the misadventures of the houseguests, as days of isolation and anxiety lead to a breakdown in social and sexual inhibitions.

Also arriving:

“Star Trek: Prodigy” Season 2

“Suits” Season 9

“Sprint” Season 1

“The Man with 1000 Kids”

“The Imaginary”

“The Boyfriend” Season 1

“Receiver” Season 1

“Sugar Rush: The Baking Point” Season 2

“Vanished Into the Night”

“Exploding Kittens” Season 1

“Master of the House” Season 1

“Find Me Falling”

“LaLiga: All Access” Season 1

“Sweet Home” Season 3

“Kleo” Season 2

“Tokyo Swindlers” Season 1

“The Dragon Prince” Season 6

“Elite” Season 8

“Heels” Season 1-2

“Prison Break” Season 1-5

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