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  1. Culture
20 June 2013

Cinema’s two perfect sequels: Bad Boys II and Before Sunset

Viewers often admit to wanting to “know what happened when the cameras stopped rolling” and in their purest form sequels answer those questions.

By Bim Adewunmi

Looking through the 120-ish DVDs that make up my not entirely representative collection, I noticed a small but revealing trend. Among all the romcoms, the many comedies, the occasional subtitled French movie, the smattering of action films, the determined sprinkling of serious drama, and the still-untouched telly box sets, I saw something I’d never really detected before – I own only two sequels.

The first is Before Sunset, the second part in the story of the American Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and the French Céline (Julie Delpy), who met on a train almost a decade earlier. Older generations have Brief Encounter – my generation has Before Sunrise. Let me parse the premise of the film for the unfortunate: Jesse meets Céline on a train somewhere in Europe, they have a chat – about books, family, ghosts, the US, France – and decide to spend a single day together. Ten years later, that little indie romance spawned a catch-up film in which we met up with our two leads again.

The result was even better than the original. Delpy and Hawke co-wrote the film with its director, Richard Linklater, resulting in a movie that wears its authenticity very lightly: is this Delpy talking about the state of the world, or Céline? And when Jesse talks about his marriage, are there shades of Hawke somewhere in the anguished utterings? Time had clearly taken its toll on our once young and carefree duo and the ex-lovers discuss their lives using real world language: life outside the movies is often a series of missed opportunities anyway, and the film manages to convey that most human of urges: hope, against even the steepest odds. Like its predecessor, the plot is almost nonexistent, but what matters here, almost literally, is the journey. It’s beautiful to see.

Viewers often admit to wanting to “know what happened when the cameras stopped rolling” and in their purest form sequels answer those questions. But as well as picking up where the last film dropped off, sequels must do two other things: take the story forward, and perhaps more importantly, make us care. Franchises, a staple of Hollywood in recent years, are not especially hard to make – the argument seems to be “if it’s been successful once before, we can reanimate that barely breathing horse one more time if we have to”. Often it is clear that content and quality are secondary concerns. If in doubt, put in some flashy CGI, or make it 3D. All this is to say a simple truth, not usually acknowledged – sequels are hard to pull off.

It’s curious that we most associate sequels with films, when the reality is that they are a staple of television. This summer has already seen the (US) season finales of several programmes, from The Good Wife and New Girl, to Parks and Recreation and Revenge. The differing quality in the four examples mentioned all add up to this take-home wisdom: in life, follow-up is hard – just ask any single parent struggling unexpectedly alone, or a newspaper columnist scrabbling for an original idea for a column.

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Ideas must be fleshed out, worthy of exploration and then almost flawlessly executed. The pressure to deliver is strong, and the possibility for failure unfairly high. Sophomore efforts are raked over with a hawkeye – they reconfirm genius (Parks and Recreation) or show up weaknesses (Revenge), and we pop-culture fans need to have the “statistics” on this at our fingertips.

At the top I mentioned I own two sequels. The second is Bad Boys II. Wait – come back! I know it’s a brainless action film helmed by Michael Bay, but it delivers in every way possible: we pick up where we left off, a friendship between two maverick police partners, solving crime with a side order of wisecracks and mega-explosions; we have character development in spades – Marcus’s family has grown, overcoming the unhappy patch in the original, and Mike is looking to settle down, which is all well and good, except it’s with his partner’s sister, which causes a schism in the partnership.

Why do we care, still? Because drugs are coming into their city and that’s A Bad Thing. It’s a winner in every department. In fact, you could argue that in many ways, Bad Boys II is the perfect sequel. Alongside Before Sunset, of course.

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