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FINAL
DESTINATION 2 Rating:  Director: David R. Ellis Writers: J. Mackye Gruber & Eric Bress Producers: Warren Zide, Craig Perry Director of Photography: Gary Capo Cast: Ali Larter, A.J. Cook, Michael Landes Visit the IMDB page for full cast and crew |
 Click the photo to buy merchandise from Final Destination 2 |
Review by: Ryan
Kugler
2/02/03
2003 will most likely go down in the books as the year of the sequel (a record-breaking 23 releases). The first one out-of-the-gate is arguably both the least deserved and the least anticipated (though Jeepers Creepers 2 and Shanghai Knights would come in a close second and third) of the year. In fact, I remember walking out of 2000's Final Destination and thinking that it was fairly original and kind of creepy (with some stylized and creative kills), but it was hardly something that I thought about the next day, let alone thought deserved a sequel. When I heard that New Line was in the planning stages of a follow-up to this mid-range performer (somewhere around the 40 or 50 million mark), my first thought was, huh? My second was, why?
To my pleasant surprise (or my guilty pleasure), Final Destination 2 uses the same exact structure as the original, but ups the ante in every way. I'm not going to pretend that this is the horror equivalent of Godfather 2 (that would be Raimi's Evil Dead 2) or that it's even remotely close to being a good film, but it's fast-paced, entertaining throughout and (thankfully) pulls no punches in the gore department (as so many wannabe horror films of late do). This isn't watered down PG-13 crap (like Soul Survivors and Darkness Falls), but all-out balls-to-the-wall horror that would please the most discriminating gorehound. Though not even close to being on the same level of accomplishment, the films that this most reminded me of were the early Peter Jackson ones (no, there aren't any bi-curious preteens with a predilection for Mario Lanza, I'm talking Bad Taste and Dead-Alive).
Like the first film, this opens with a terrifying premonition of a major tragedy. Kimberly (the cute-as-a-button A.J. Cook) is getting ready to go on a road trip with some friends (typical horror movie teens) when she has a horrifying (maybe too horrifying for some) vision of a major traffic accident that will kill many, including all of them. She decides that it isn't worth finding out if this is true or not and barricades the freeway on-ramp (to prevent all of the people that she pictured perishing, from entering the "death trap"). Sure enough, the accident happens (in spectacular fashion, though director David R. Ellis doesn't shoot his whole load in this opening sequence, like the director of Ghost Ship did at the beginning of his film) and Kimberly and most of the others are spared.
When strange and gruesome accidents (more elaborate and gooey than those in the original) begin to happen to some of the survivors (in the order that they were supposed to die on the freeway), Kimberly seeks out Clear Rivers (Ali Larter, one of only two returning characters and the only teen to survive the horrors of the original) for an explanation. Kimberly learns that death has a plan for all that escaped its wrath and along with the help of Rivers and Candyman himself (Tony Todd, also a first film returnee), she goes about trying to defeat it.
While the large cast of mostly unknowns, including Michael Landes as a cop who looks like American Beauty's Wes Bentley (who will soon be playing these types of roles in these kinds of movies, if he doesn't get his act together), perform adequately and the dialogue is decent, the only real reason to pay for this is for the money-shots.
So, now that I've totally hyped these scenes up, you want to know what you're going to get. I'll spare you the details (because some of these scenes have to be seen to be believed), but I will say that you get to see eyeballs punctured, heads decapitated, bodies eviscerated and cadavers cremated, amongst many other ghoulish delights. Each of these scenes (which occur frequently) brought large amounts of cheers from the packed-house, so I guess I'd call this a real crowd-pleaser. I don't know if this reaction should worry me (it worried the hell out of my wife), but it sure made for a fun time out.
Keeping all of this in mind, I'll still say that I'm anticipating Final Destination 3 about as much as I anticipated part 2.
(A New Line Cinema release. Opened
in wide release on January 31, 2003.)
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