Final Destination 2 review by The Grim Ringler
Final Destination 2
I remember seeing the first Final Destination and really liking it. It’s a pretty clever, pretty fun mass-market horror film. And what I mean by mass-market is that it isn’t TOO dark, and it has all those pretty young actors in it that look so good when they die on screen. It was what it was, and as such, it was pretty neat. I wish I could say the same for the sequel.
Final Destination 2 picks up a year after the first one takes place and has a group of friends on their way down to Daytona for what I would assume is Spring Break. On the way though one of them – Kimberly, the driver of the SUV they are in – has a vision of a terrible car pile up that they will be part of, and seeing it, freaks out and refuses to move her vehicle forward. And in so doing, or not doing, she changes the lives of the people behind her on the onramp to the expressway (sadly some of our happy campers don’t fare so well and end up smooshed in the car crash) and suddenly all their fates are intertwined because they have cheated Death and Death, that old sourpuss, doesn’t take well to cheats and goes back after them all in earnest. And if they want to survive they have to figure out Death’s Plan and beat him at his own game. Sorta like a cosmic chess match. I guess.
Now this is far from a bad movie. It’s well made, and acted about as well as can be hoped for, but it all plays out like a re-tread of the first film. There really isn’t anything new, and they said what they had to say in the first film. And I will say that they link the first and second films to one another in an interesting way, but other than the really extreme gore (HURRAY!) there isn’t a lot that is going to surprise you. In fact, the movie sorta becomes a comedy where you are expecting the punch-lines that are coming in the form of the death of another character. And again, the deaths are something to see, being both brutal and morbidly funny, but some swell deaths don’t a great movie make. The movie is a fun time-waster, but isn’t much more.
Now you can’t completely pan a movie that even bothers to bring up the bigger ideas of Fate and Free Will, but sadly, it was all seen in the first movie. This is a decent movie, and if you are a gore-hound, it’s a great, nasty little surprise, but it isn’t much more. So see it for what it is, take it for what it is, and don’t expect a whole lot.
…c…
6 out of 10 Jackasses
