In Honor of 'Threequel' Being Removed From the Dictionary, 9 Great Threequels
Sad news today from the world of words: the Concise Oxford English Dictionary announced that its 12th edition would no longer include the word "threequel." (Also gone, "cassette player"; weep for the '80s.) In honor of the dearly departed "threequel" -- defined as "the third film, book, event, etc. in a series; a second sequel," it will still appear in the less concise Oxford Dictionary of English -- Movieline has assembled a list of nine great third films. Click ahead to disagree with the list!
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, 1966 (dir. Sergio Leone)
Not necessarily a direct sequel to A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More, but The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is Sergio Leone's final entry in his Dollars Trilogy with Clint Eastwood as the Man with No Name. Thank goodness Hollywood fears anything with a cowboy hat now, otherwise there's a good chance this all-time classic would get the remake treatment -- probably with Katy Perry sampling the famed Ennio Morricone theme song for the soundtrack.
Rocky III, 1982 (dir. Sylvester Stallone)
Thunderlips. Clubber Lang. The death of Mickey. "Eye of the Tiger." That absurd training montage. "What's your prediction for the fight?" "Pain." Perhaps not the best threequel ever, but certainly the most fun.
Star Wars: Episode VI -- Return of the Jedi, 1983 (dir. Richard Marquand)
Mock the Ewoks all you want, but the fact remains that Return of the Jedi is actually an incredibly watchable bit of sci-fi adventure fun -- especially in its final act, when the battle for Luke's soul is cross-cut with the Rebel uprising and Han and Leia's attempts to bring the Death Star shields down. Note: this one may have aged so well because compared to the excruciating Star Wars prequels it's like Citizen Kane. Also: Jabba the Hutt!
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, 1989 (dir. Steven Spielberg)
Featuring the last great Harrison Ford performance -- or at least the last role where he seemed to be enjoying himself (sorry, but Dr. Richard Kimble was too determined to have fun) -- The Last Crusade is geek nirvana. Indiana Jones and James Bond against Nazis in a race for the Holy Grail? You have chosen wisely.
Die Hard With a Vengeance, 1995 (dir. John McTiernan)
After Renny Harlin exploded the Die Hard formula with Die Hard 2: Die Harder (still can't believe that's the subtitle), original Die Hard director John McTiernan returned for a very worthy follow-up to his beloved first film. As the downtrodden and hungover John McClane in Die Hard With a Vengeance, Bruce Willis is perfection, and he gets fun, scenery-chewing support from Samuel L. Jackson (at the height of his screaming prowess) and Jeremy Irons (basically twirling an invisible mustache). The cat-and-mouse plot is a hoot, the New York City setting is a goldmine for action set pieces, and the "yippy ki-yay, motherfucker!" comes right when you want it to come. A winner.
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, 2003 (dir. Peter Jackson)
An obvious entry on any list of threequels, but in an era of blockbuster threequel busts (see Revenge of the Sith, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, and -- for some -- Transformers: Dark of the Moon), an outstanding achievement of finality. It could probably do with one or three less endings, but Jackson's work here is undeniable. Also, when pushing for Andy Serkis to get an Oscar nomination for Rise of the Planet of the Apes, remember he was never better than as Gollum in King.
Pusher III, 2005 (dir. Nicolas Winding Refn)
From Movieline's "7 Masterpieces of the '00s You've Likely Never Seen" by S.T. VanAirsdale: "As the son of one of Denmark's most legendary filmmakers, you probably could have foreseen at least a few of the rebellion issues plaguing Nicolas Winding Refn's first two violent, haphazard entries in his Pusher trilogy. Yet when he reached the second film's exhausting denouement in 2004, one could also sense Refn was exorcising whatever had held back his kinetic portraits of life in Copenhagen's criminal underworld (as well as his grueling English-language debut Fear X). Closing the series in 2005 with Pusher III (cheerily subtitled I'm the Angel of Death), Refn checks back in with the earlier films' drug baron Milo (Zlatko Buric). A junkie aging for the worse every day, and stuck with the added responsibility of organizing his spoiled daughter's birthday party, Milo decides against his better judgment to sell a huge load of mistakenly acquired ecstasy. That requires the intersection of some of Copenhagen's least savory gangsters, a troublesome epidemic of food poisoning, a few hundred consumed cigarettes and an unspeakably nasty final act that makes Refn's 2009 prison fable Bronson look like an afterschool special on deliquency. It also redeems the first two Pusher films, which was no small feat. (Trailer very NSFW.)"
The Bourne Ultimatum, 2007 (dir. Paul Greengrass)
Real talk: the Matt Damon-led Bourne movies all blend together. For reference, Ultimatum is the one with Clive Owen the one with Karl Urban the one with Edgar Martinez, that kick-ass car chase through lower Manhattan and Bourne's homecoming/final swan dive. Paul Greengrass kept things lean and mean in his last moments as franchise head coach, while Damon was at his brusque and brutal best. Jeremy Renner and Co. have large, military-issued boots to fill for The Bourne Legacy.
Toy Story 3, 2010 (dir. Lee Unkrich)
It's kind of impossible to have a list of threequels without Toy Story 3. Beloved by critics (with the exception of Armond White), beloved by audiences, and beloved by Academy members, the third film in the near two-billion-grossing Pixar franchise dealt with the loss of innocence and growing into adulthood better than almost any live-action film release in the recent past. Translation: I cried. You did too.
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It took me several viewings before I realized the timeline of The Bourne Ultimatum overlapped with The Bourne Supremacy (the subtext of Pam Landy's Supremacy-ending phone call to Bourne changed in the process). Every time these movies are on TNT or whatever, I am physically incapable of doing anything else but watching.
While they are technically not three-quels, the third Punisher movie, Punisher War Zone, and Piranha 3D are by far the greatest movies out of any in their respective series of films.
Because both are face-meltingly awesome!
Funny that people still think Die Harder is the subtitle for DH2. It was only part of the poster and trailer (like how 'It will blow you through the back of the theater' was for DH1) and was simply integrated onto the box for home release. Also, RotJ was episode VI, not IV.
It's unconscionable that you would exclude Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan through Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, more affectionately known as the Genesis Trilogy. It's far more complete than many of the movies on this list.
And I don't care how many great reviews it garnered or Oscars it won, The Return of the King was execrable and casts a wretched shadow over the astonishing achievements that were The Fellowship of the Ring extended edition and The Two Towers theatrical release. Neither version of The Return of the King is tolerable.
If it's only part of the poster, the trailer and the VHS box, it kinda is the subtitle.
Fixed the Roman numeral error, Gen. Grammarus.
Naw. C'mon, "The Search For Spock" is the only film under consideration there, and it was nowhere near as good as "Wrath Of Khan". If the article was on first sequels, "Khan" is a cracker, but "Spock" doesn't measure up.
By the same token, I'm disappointed with the inclusion of "Jedi". Sure, there are iconic visual moments, but there's also a whole bag of groans, tired plotting, bad dialogue... I mean, seriously, when Luke is being dragged away from Jabba and whines/sneers "Worst mistake you'll ever make", I was like "Kill the snotty little prick, Big J!" Plus the Muppets, the rehashed Death Star, the movement back from the grandness of "Empire" to cartoon cheese.... "Jedi" was like someone being dealt a royal flush and throwing out cards looking for pairs. I was 13 when it came out and even then it was obviously off the boil.
And, pray-tell, what about The Godfather?
I have to say Godfather 3 was a horrible movie; then again, the other 2 Godfather movies were overrated.
GOLDFINGER. Only gold.
What's with the revenge of the sith bashing? IDK how it can be considered a threequel bust when it's universally considered to be the best of the prequel trilogy
Have to agree with Jcooley there. Not only was Revenge of the Sith a solid movie, I'd say it was the best Star Wars film since Empire.
It said a " list of nine great third films" not the least stinky films of all time. If you think any of the Star Wars prequels was a "solid" movie, you need professional help.
I enjoyed the third Back to the Future more than at least 3 of the films mentioned above.
Okay... so let me start by saying that I am a die hard Lord of the Rings fan, and I love all things Tolkien... so when people say that Return of the King has too many endings, I have to step in and say that it HAS to have a long ending. The end is around 20 minutes long (I believe) and that is astoundingly short for a movie that has to wrap up so many story lines. A 20 minute ending to over 9 hours (11 for the extended editions) of storytelling is pretty reasonable to me.
One 20 minute ending would've been terrific. (I actually think they wimped out not doing "The Scouring Of The Shire"; it would have been a great filmmaking challenge to invest a small battle with tension after the Mt Doom stuff.) It was that there were SIX endings - well, I really felt four - four points at which a scene concluded, the rhythms of the film came to a complete stop - a genuine "conclusion" moment - only to arc up again. Truthfully, it wasn't the endings that were troubling, it was restarting after each ending. That actually asks quite a bit from an audience (in terms of energy and concentration) to get the narrative moving again, and doing it multiple times has diminishing returns.
With endings, great movies know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. Always felt like LOTR was a little too reluctant to let go.
And +1 for BTTF3. Not a great film, but after the nasty, mean-spirited mess that was the first sequel, its good heart came as a nice surprise.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban?
I consider myself to be an intelligent and thorough movie buff, as I am involved in the movie industry (and have been for over 20 years) and "Revenge of the Sith" is a good Star wars film; I'd give it a B+. It may not be great, but it is quite enjoyable and even exhilarating at times. Btw, most movie critics agree with me, as it garnered a 7.2 overall rating, and 80% fresh approval on rottentomatoes.com. Maybe it is YOU who needs professional help. Let's be honest that it has become "hip" to bash everything related to Star Wars prequels. Some of the criticism is completely unwarranted. And yeah, I had the guts to just say that.
I'll have all the vertically disadvantaged people with overgrown feet in desparate need of defoliation wishing all of Mordor to fall down upon me by writing this, but I think of the "Rings Trilogy" as "Bored of the Rings". I felt that each of these fantasically produced movies could've been shortened by about 45 minutes.
The Bourne trilogy was just about perfect. Like Ciscoman, whenever any of these movies I can't turn away.
The Bourne movies are nigh unwatchable. Doug Liman took a thrilling novel, gutted it, neutered it, and turned it into a fantastic bore. The Paul Greengrass follow-ups are infamous for birthing the current crop of shaky-cam action grotesqueries that we must endure to this day.
+1, in the sense that I reckon it's the best of them. Don't know whether it's a great film, but for second sequels the bar is set pretty low innit!
Someone forgot to mention "The Matrix" series...
I also forgot about the "Shrek" series.
The Paradise Lost trilogy is shaping up to be the greatest trilogy of all time. We'll find out in November when part 3 airs but, knowing how satisfying the story concludes, I can't see it disappointing.
I hope that you are kidding.