Final Destination 2

Movie Title: Final Destination 2
Official Website (it might still work): Final Destination 2
Rating (out of 10): 3
Reviewed By: Michael Stevens
Buy the: Video/DVD \| Soundtrack
The Review:

I remember a few years back when a movie called Final Destination was in theaters. I also remember seeing the advertising for it and thinking to myself that this movie looks rather stupid. As such I decided not to go see it, but they went and made a sequel anyway. Don’t ask me why I went to see it this time.

For those who did not see the first film, don’t worry about it because the director (David R. Ellis) decided to waste a good portion of the film telling everyone what happened in the first film. Well this time around it is one year after the main event in the first film, the fatal crash of Flight 180 that killed all onboard. Then within a few months a group of students and teachers that had gotten off the plane before take-off (based on one student’s premonition) all died from freak accidents, except for a girl named Clear Rivers (Ali Larter, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back) who ended up committing herself to a mental institution to protect herself. Apparently death keeps a list of all those who escape death and keeps coming after them until it can kill all of those that were destined to die. It also does this in the same order as when the people were supposed to die. Enter the lovely Kimberly Corman (A.J. Cook, Out Cold) who is about to head to Daytona Beach for spring break with her friends when she gets a premonition about a horrible pileup on the freeway that kills her and her friends. This freaks her out and causes her to block the onramp, thus saving a dozen or so people, but the accident happens anyway killing a bunch of others. Then bam, a truck plows into her SUV as she is standing outside talking with a cop and her friends all die instantly. Since Kimberly went to school with the kids from Flight 180, she knows all about the whole death has a list concept, and thus she tries to seek help from her fellow survivors. Most are skeptical, but the cop Thomas Burke (Michael Landes, Hart's War) is supportive since he too was aware of the Flight 180 events. Soon everyone gets a little supportive evidence after survivor Evan (David Paetkau, Disturbing Behavior) has a deadly run-in with a fire escape ladder. So now the remaining survivors Eugene (Terrence Carson, U-571), Kat (Keegan Connor Tracy, 40 Days and 40 Nights), Nora (Lynda Boyd) and Tim Carpenter (James N. Kirk), and Rory (Jonathan Cherry) start to take things a little more seriously. Of course this isn’t the last untimely death as the survivors start to get picked-off one-by-one in gruesome, freak accidents. Meantime, Kimberly seeks out and gets the assistance of Clear Rivers. Then they, along with the cop, see a creepy mortician (Tony Todd) that seems to know how to cheat death. But do they understand the message, and will it work?

Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber are responsible for the screenplay, which was based on the original story that Jeffrey Reddick wrote for the first film. Also in the movie are Enid-Raye Adams, Justina Machado, Andrew Downing, Cam Cronin, Sarah Hattingh, Sarah Carter, and finally Aaron Douglas.

Obviously, predictability is a huge problem for this film. Plus most of the jumps were produced through gore, not surprises (though one could argue that the extent of gore was so gruesome that it created the surprise effect). Anyway, there were some laughs, but not nearly enough suspense. Plenty of death, explosions, and flying body parts, if you are into that sort of thing, but no real redeeming qualities as a film. In the end I rate Final Destination 2 a low three couches out of ten on the About-Movies.com scale (it would have scored lower but some of the deaths were pretty cool).