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Piranha 3DD (2012)
The Original: Alexandre Aja's remake of the 1978 film of the same name is already a pretty OTT affair, containing a raft of porn stars, gory feeding frenzies and Jerry O' Connell's severed penis, all in glorious 3D. However, things can always get sillier, as the forthcoming sequel is about to demonstrate…
The OTT Sequel: The film's mission statement is made abundantly clear in the tagline, which boasts, "Double the action. Double the terror. Double the Ds." That's right, we can look forward to more boobs and bloodshed second time out, with the added incentive of cameos from David Hasselhoff and Gary Busey.
Most Insane Moment: A flatulent cow sends a fart-load of hungry piranhas raining down on Busey's head. Do we need to sell this any more?
Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen (2009)
The Original: Michael Bay brings the robots in disguise to the big screen in this noisily affable actioner, stuffed to the gills with sleek cars, hot girls and big explosions. Provided you weren't expecting anything intellectually stimulating (and if you were, what were you thinking?), this was big dumb fun of the highest order.
The OTT Sequel: With an even more lavish budget at his disposal, Bay went bigger on everything, throwing more Transformers into the mix, devoting even longer to the fine art of blowing shit up, and managing to make Shia LaBeouf even more irritating than before. He even called in the Department of Defence to lend a hand with the weaponry!
Most Insane Moment: The Devastator drops in to ratchet up the Bayhem to eardrum-perforating levels of crazy.
Saw 2 (2005)
The Original: The first Saw movie is less a horror film than it is an ingeniously macabre thriller, in the vein of David Fincher's Se7en . Incredibly tightly plotted, nasty without seeming cheap and boasting a killer twist in the final reel, it's a relentlessly inventive chiller that bears little relation to the torture-porn sub genre it helped spawn.
The OTT Sequel: While most of the violence in the original took place off-screen, Saw 2 brought Jigsaw's fiendish traps front and centre, playing up a number of toe-curlingly horrible sequences including a pit of hypodermic needles and a man being baked alive in an oven. It would be a pattern that would grow more and more pronounced throughout the series, as gross-out horror became the name of an increasingly tiresome game.
Most Insane Moment: The scene in which Amanda is tossed into a pit of syringes and forced to rummage through them in search of a key is pretty difficult to watch…
Back To The Future Part 2 (1989)
The Original: A near-perfect example of family-friendly sci-fi, in which Michael J. Fox's uber-charming Marty McFly finds himself stranded in the '50s where he must ensure his parents end up getting together, before its too late. Throw in a dynamite performance from Christopher Lloyd, and you've got one of the best loved films of all time.
The OTT Sequel: Not only is there a lot more time travel involved (Marty is in and out of that DeLorean like nobody's business), but Robert Zemeckis also gets to create his vision of 2015, complete with flying cars, Jaws 19 and of course, the mighty hoverboard. If not quite as perfectly formed as the original, it's still a thrilling adventure, with most of the new bells and whistles adding to the experience rather than making unnecessary clutter.
Most insane Moment: It has to be the Hoverboards doesn't it? We still want one more than anything else in the world…
Bad Boys 2 (2003)
The Original: Michael Bay's first film is a likeable buddy cop affair partnering Will Smith's laid-back womaniser with Martin Lawrence's irritable family man as they go after a posse of drug traffickers with very '90s wardrobes. Despite a good helping of gunfights and car-chases, it feels remarkably restrained for Bay, something he would put right in the belated sequel…
The OTT Sequel: With seven times more budget to play with, Bay gets stuck into the set pieces with gusto, an eye-popping freeway chase proving the pick of an overblown bunch. Sadly, the script is far more leaden this time around and the chemistry between Lawrence and Smith sputters when it should crackle. Still, it is very, very loud.
Most Insane Moment: The boys take a brief trip to Cuba where they manage to reduce an entire hillside to a pile of smouldering rubble. All in a day's work.
The Hangover Part 2 (2011)
The Original: The sleeper hit of the summer of 2009, The Hangover armed a cast of relative unknowns with a whip-smart script and an instantly relatable set-up (bunch of blokes wake up in Vegas with no recollection of the night before) and let them run with it to hilarious effect. As well as being consistently funny, it also felt fresh. Sadly, that latter quality would be blasted into oblivion by the sequel…
The OTT Sequel: The Hangover 2 might as well be subtitled " The Hangover … only more so". Everything from the original has been exaggerated, from Alan's man-child persona to Stu's penchant for physical disfigurement (where once he lost a tooth, now he has a facial tattoo), all the comic beats are grotesquely distorted like over-inflated balloons. Somewhat inevitably, most of them end up bursting.
Most Insane Moment: Stealing a performing monkey back from a posse of Russian mobsters in the middle of a car chase. Consider that shark well and truly jumped.
Blade 2 (2002)
The Original: Wesley Snipes stars as badass half-human half-vampire, Blade, a "daywalker" who makes it his business to protect the Earth from an evil group of bloodsuckers in this stylish comic-book adaptation. There's a bit of origin exposition to plough through at first, but Blade still packs plenty of punch, particularly in its explosive latter stages.
The OTT Sequel: Introductions out of the way, Guillermo Del Toro's incident-crammed sequel throws as much guts and gore at proceedings as possible, with Blade barely taking a break from all the blood-letting to spit out the odd one-liner. In the first film he did plenty of brooding, but this time he's totally focused on taking down those "blood-guzzling motherfuckers." Word.
Most Insane Moment: Blade knocks an armed goon to the floor before stamping clean through his helmet, leaving his face a quivering mass of viscera. Splat!
Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull (2008)
The Original: Raiders Of The Lost Ark combined swashbuckling action with a supremely likeable hero, whilst throwing in a supernatural element for good measure. The result was one of the finest adventure movies ever created, with two excellent sequels (yeah, we're including Temple Of Doom in there) continuing the series along similar lines. Until…
The OTT Sequel: Don't get us wrong, Indy had always required some suspension of disbelief. However, running away from a giant boulder is one thing… clambering into a fridge to evade a nuclear blast is quite another. And while the ghostly Ark of the Covenant felt in keeping with the retro Boy's Own vibe, introducing aliens to the mix was wildly misjudged. In fact, the only set piece that works is the motorcycle chase, which echoes the less OTT action of the original trilogy.
Most Insane Moment: It has to be the aforementioned instance of nuclear testing. There's a reason "nuking the fridge" has become the new "jumping the shark".
Crank: High Voltage (2009)
The Original: A deliriously silly romp based upon a brilliant high concept: Jason Statham must keep his adrenaline at a certain level by fighting, shagging and swearing his way through ninety minutes of non-stop action. You might have thought it impossible to make this one any more over the top, but you'd have been wrong…
The OTT Sequel: Neveldine / Taylor achieve the seemingly impossible by creating a movie that's significantly more stupid than the original. This time out, Statham is packing a battery-operated heart in place of the indestructible one that kept him alive at the end of the first movie. "Where the fuck is my strawberry tart?" he squawks, setting the tone nicely…
Most Insane Moment: It's a toss-up between the stripper whose implant-assisted boobs get punctured in the middle of a gunfight, or the scene where Statham shoves a shotgun up some poor unfortunate's backside. Yes, actually…
Spider-Man 3 (2007)
The Original: Sam Raimi's take on everyone's favourite web-slinger was a pleasingly cartoonish adventure, combining a quick-witted script with a healthy dose of spectacle, particularly when Tobey Maguire took the audience swinging around Manhattan's skyline. Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin might have been a touch too panto for some tastes, but even his scenery chewing helped contribute to the prevailing sense of fun.
The OTT Sequel: Foolishly attempting to cram three villains into the one movie, the third film collapses under the weight of its aspirations. On paper it might have seemed as though three baddies would lead to treble the excitement, but in practice, it's a case of too many cooks. The action is certainly relentless, but without a coherent plot to hang it off, it washes over the viewer like so much white noise.
Most Insane Moment: Sandman starts smashing up Manhattan, just as Venom and Green Goblin 2 show up to get themselves some. Ho-hum...
Aliens (1986)
The Original: Pitched by Ridley Scott as " Jaws in space", this sci-fi shocker is an exercise in white-knuckle tension as the crew of the Nostromo find more than they bargained for when answering what they presume to be an outer-space distress signal. Grisly, gruesome and relentlessly nerve-wracking, Prometheus has a lot to live up to…
The OTT Sequel: As indicated by the title, James Cameron made the decision to up the number of Xenomorphs on show, and recast his protagonists as marines in order to even up the odds. More of a straight-up action movie than its predecessor, Aliens is every bit as thrilling, without compromising on any of the original's spine-chilling terror.
Most Insane Moment: "Get away from her you bitch". Now that's one hell of a final face-off!
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
The Original: A lean, mean, sci-fi actioner starring a pre-megastardom Arnie as the seemingly unstoppable robot with a shoot-first-ask-questions-later approach to completing his mission. James Cameron gets the balance just right between tension and mayhem, while also throwing Arnie a catchphrase he'd roll out for the rest of his career…
The OTT Sequel: Just as he did with Aliens , Cameron ups his game second time out by increasing the number of Terminators on show and generally cranking the carnage up to eleven. Robert Patrick makes for a welcome addition as the ruthless T-1000, while the gamble of converting Arnie into a good guy pays off in spades.
Most Insane Moment: With twelve times the budget to play with, the action takes place on a far grander scale second time out, with the truck chase sticking in the memory as a particularly jaw-dropping interlude.
The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
The Original: The Wachowski brothers reinvent the sci-fi movie with this action heavy journey down the existential rabbit hole. Keanu Reeves is the average joe who learns that the world he lives in is not what it seems, and finds himself the figurehead of a mission to rescue his species from a race of human-harvesting machines.
The OTT Sequel: Everything is bigger, louder and more draining in round two, as the plot takes a turn for the incomprehensible, and the action is ramped up to almost ridiculous levels of mayhem. The freeway sequence is particularly deafening, as explosions rain down left right and centre. You'll feel like you've run a marathon by the end...
Most Insane Moment: The Matrix contained an enjoyable face-off between Neo and Agent Smith, and naturally, the sequel feels compelled to trump it. So this time, it's Neo versus a whole mob of Agent Smiths. Oof!
Evil Dead 2 (1987)
The Original: Sam Raimi's microscopically budgeted video nasty was a genuinely terrifying affair, with the isolated cabin in the woods serving as the perfect conduit for the film's prevailing sense of tension and paranoia. Throw in plenty of splatter and some worryingly inventive nastiness (the tree scene in particular) and you've got an iconic moment in horror movie history.
The OTT Sequel: More of a remake than a conventional sequel, Raimi returns to the woods intent on enjoying himself, amping up the gore to hysterical levels while transforming Bruce Campbell's Ash from cowering wimp to scenery-chewing man of action. Happily, Raimi is too savvy to completely throw the baby out with the bathwater, and there are plenty of scares left over to complement the tongue-in-cheek spoofery.
Most Insane Moment: Karo syrup ahoy as Ash pins down his demonically possessed hand and lops it off with a chainsaw. "WHO'S LAUGHING NOW!"
Rambo: First Blood Part 2 (1985)
The Original: Rather than a straightforward blast 'em up, First Blood is actually a sociopolitical comment on the Vietnam war, with damaged veteran John Rambo simply trying to readjust to life in the US. Sure, Stallone has the muscles, but it's these big, confused eyes that really linger in the memory.
The OTT Sequel: All subtlety is dispensed with in this kill-crazy sequel, in which Rambo appears to have undergone a total personality overhaul to become a steroid-addled, bloodthirsty war machine. Out goes the post-Vietnam irony to be replaced by xenophobic stereotypes and lashings of gore. Not so much a sequel as a total hatchet job.
Most Insane Moment: Any of the scenes in which Rambo breaks out his trusty arsenal of exploding arrows. Yeesh…
