5 Superhero Movie Sequels of the 2000s That Surpassed the Originals
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Unfairly or not, sequels have had a less-than-great reputation over who knows how many years now for being inferior to the stories that came before. It’s not exclusive to movies, since book sequels had existed before feature films were really a thing, but there have been a lot of movie sequels, to put it mildly. And some have missed the mark, or felt cynically made, potentially just existing to piggyback off the success of one movie. A sequel being worthy of standing alongside the original is desirable, of course, but then the instances where sequels are arguably better than the originals have proven rare enough that such films have been praised a ton (see The Empire Strikes Back, Toy Story 2, and debatably The Godfather Part II, which more than filled what were already some pretty big shoes).
To focus on one genre and one decade, though, the 2000s seemed like a pretty great one, in hindsight, for sequels to superhero movies. The following ones are all “first” sequels, in the sense that they're all basically a “Part 2” to a single movie that came before. All but one of these sequels got a third movie, and all those third movies were inferior to the second ones, so the momentum wasn’t perfectly kept up in any example here. Still, the fact that in this decade, five superhero movies came out and improved upon originals that were already good to great in quality is worth celebrating, and so these sequels have all played a part in making superhero films as dominant as they have been throughout the 2010s and until now, too (the 2020s, at the time of writing).
5 'X2' (2003)
The first X-Men movie came out in 2000, and it was pretty good. For its time, it was pretty great. Nowadays, it’s pretty good. Quite a lot in the superhero/comic book movie sphere has surpassed it, including X2, which might not be the very best X-Men movie, but it’s a contender (and might only place behind the likes of X-Men: Days of Future Past and Logan, if the latter counts). It does what good sequels tend to do by hitting the ground running and giving more interesting things for most of the returning characters to do. If you want Professor Charles Xavier to do a lot, you might be disappointed, and the same goes for Cyclops, though the latter is infamously discarded across the first three X-Men movies, so it’s not as surprising that happens in X2.
Also, X2 looks ever greater when you see where the X-Men films went, because 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand is not very good at all, and unfortunately squandered the momentum the run of films up until that point had been building. Still, it’s good to just focus on what works, and X2 holds up well. It’s got better action than the first, a great villain played by Brian Cox, and a good mix of returning characters and interesting new ones (as people tend to say, Nightcrawler is indeed a highlight). This one just gets most things right, as far as superhero movies with ensemble casts go, and it’s definitely the best of the “original trilogy” of X-Men movies.
4 'Blade II' (2002)
Of all the movies here, Blade II is probably the furthest from great, but quality-wise, it still more than delivers. And also, of all the movies here, there’s probably the smallest difference in quality between it and the movie it’s a sequel to. Blade (1998) is quite good, and also fairly ahead-of-its-time, given it was a successful R-rated comic book movie at a time when that was quite the novelty. And for one more thing, calling Blade II better than Blade might not be the most popular opinion, since both are well-regarded, and Blade (1998) might be the slightly more consistent and straightforward film. It’s unlikely anyone would consider Blade: Trinity the best of the bunch, though.
There’s sufficient eccentricity here that gives the movie a bit more personality than the first, even if that first movie gives the title character a bit more to do.
That one’s a mess that makes X-Men: The Last Stand look not all that bad in comparison. Blade II is much easier to like, and it’s technically the strongest of the bunch, since Guillermo del Toro was brought in to direct this one, and though he didn’t go full del Toro, he went fairly hard on the del Toro-isms. There’s sufficient eccentricity here that gives the movie a bit more personality than the first, even if that first movie gives the title character a bit more to do, and is particularly appreciable as a shock to the system (so to speak) for superhero movies overall.
3 'Hellboy II: The Golden Army' (2008)
Guillermo del Toro did another superhero sequel a few years on from Blade II: Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Between then, he also directed the first Hellboy, so Hellboy II: The Golden Army feels heavier with his style, compared to Blade II, because both films feel more like passion projects, or movies where he had more control. Hellboy (2004) was not a huge hit, but a couple of years later, del Toro did Pan’s Labyrinth, and no, that one’s not a superhero movie, but it was a perfect movie. So del Toro probably had a lot of freedom going into his first post-Pan’s Labyrinth movie, and he poured it into Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Like the first, it wasn’t really a hit in the financial sense, though it did rock, at least.
Since The Golden Army, there have been two Hellboy movies not directed by Guillermo del Toro, and neither of them did well financially. The whole series seems a bit cursed, as far as box office is concerned. Also, the two more recent ones aren’t great, so at least del Toro’s are actually good. Money ain’t everything, and the important thing is that Hellboy II: The Golden Army has aged so well in the nearly 20 years since its release. It’s a great dark fantasy movie on top of being a fun and fast-paced superhero film, and it effectively set up a third installment that sadly never came to fruition. 2008 was a crowded year for superhero movies, so The Golden Army probably got buried under Iron Man and another film that'll be mentioned shortly (since it was also an excellent sequel), though it’s held up well, and even if not enough people have watched it, you'll probably struggle to find too many people who have watched it and don’t have nice things to say about it.
2 'Spider-Man 2' (2004)
Spider-Man 2 is so good. It’s so, so good. It’s perfect. How is it #2 here? Well, this rambling isn't necessarily ranked, though if it was, there’s an argument to be made that the one movie that appears below is somehow even better than Spider-Man 2. With Spider-Man 2, though, this is about as good as a live-action Spider-Man movie can possibly be. And there have been other great ones, with Spider-Man: Brand New Day being quite recent at the time of writing, and also beloved, in part because it scratches the same itch as Spider-Man 2. Peter Parker is going through a lot in both, even by Peter Parker/Spider-Man standards. And he is the ultimate underdog/relatable hero, so the more he struggles, and the more he has to overcome, the better the story he’s at the center of usually is.
Having a great villain also helps, and you get that with Doc Ock here, who’s about as iconic as the already incredible Green Goblin, who was the main antagonist of Spider-Man (2002). As for Spider-Man (2002), that movie was also great, being even more important than the first X-Men movie for establishing just how a superhero film could be done on a proper blockbuster scale. The tone’s a bit chaotic with that first movie, and some of the effects don’t hold up, but otherwise, there’s not much done wrong in the first Spider-Man. So, to highlight Spider-Man 2 as a movie that does hold up, in its entirety, and improves upon just about everything found in that first film? It’s a pretty bold statement to make, but it’s accurate.
1 'The Dark Knight' (2008)
Christopher Nolan made his first superhero movie in 2005, when he directed Batman Begins, and that was also his first full-fledged blockbuster. Like with X-Men, Blade, and Hellboy, it was good for its time, albeit not quite as exciting nowadays. There are a few flaws that feel more evident nowadays, but the foundation is still good, and it was one of those first movies in a series that walked so that the next one could run. The Dark Knight actually didn’t run. It got in a monster truck, accelerated to 100 miles an hour in the span of a few seconds (it’s a really modded-out monster truck or something), ran over all the other runners, and crossed the finish line without being disqualified, somehow. It just did that much right, and proved that good.
It’s all undeniable. And like a long-distance runner who is allowed to mod a monster truck, use it instead of running, and then get away with murdering their competition, it’s hard for many movies to compete with The Dark Knight. It overshadows Batman Begins, and then it was too difficult to match, quality-wise, when it came to Nolan directing The Dark Knight Rises in 2012 (still, at least that movie’s better than X-Men: The Last Stand and Blade: Trinity). The Dark Knight goes above and beyond, in terms of what you'd expect out of a superhero/comic book movie, and also in terms of what you might expect from a sequel (even a good sequel). It really is simply that great.
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