…at least according to Entertainment Weekly:

http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20583478,00.html

Is there anything worse than a good film whose reputation may be sullied a bit (or a lot) by a sequel that is both unnecessary and/or awful?  The choices given in this list are interesting.  If I may, let me add a movie to that list, a film that was a sequel, yet not a sequel, to a very popular film…

The summer of 1988 was the only time I can remember seeing not one, but two absolutely gut-bustingly hilarious films one after the other.  That was the summer that The Naked Gun was released, and to this day I still remember a lady sitting in front of me in the theater absolutely losing it when the inept Sgt. Drebin got a little too carried away playing the umpire during a major league game.

The second film released that summer that had me in stitches was A Fish Called Wanda.  While a little more grounded in the “real world” than the lunacy of The Naked Gun, the movie nonetheless was inspired comedy, featuring Monty Python’s John Cleese and Michael Palin at their best, along with great work by both Jamie Lee Curtis and, in an absolutely maniacal turn, Kevin Kline as a dimwitted wanna-be crook.

Nearly ten years later, those four-some would return to the screen in 1997’s Fierce Creatures.  While the film was certainly not a direct sequel to A Fish Called Wanda (the characters the four actors played were different), the film was obviously intended to draw in people who enjoyed the interaction of those four A Fish Called Wanda actors into what was touted as another comedic foray.  Minus, alas, even a fraction of the laughs one found in that film.  I dimly recall reading about many problems during the making of Fierce Creatures.  There was talk of re-writes and re-filmed sequences and the studios having very little faith in the final result.  As it turned out, they were right.  Fierce Creatures, the sorta/kinda sequel to A Fish Called Wanda proved to be a bitter disappointment.

Don’t believe me?  Check out the trailer below.  You know your comedy film is in trouble when even the trailer doesn’t elicit so much as a smile.