Final Destination 2 Starring A.J. Cook, Ali Larter Directed by David R. Ellis Rated R for strong violent/gruesome accidents, language, drug content and some nudity **1/4 out of **** Stars, Movie Grade: C+

Theatrical Release: January 31, 2003
Running time: 100 minutes

by Kevin Lang

Clear Rivers (Ali Larter), the only survivor from the first "Final Destination" film, has been locked away in an institution at her own free will to escape death from finding her. This was the premise from the first film, that if you cheat death and disrupt death's design for you, then it will come back for you, basically playing on the saying, "You can't cheat death." "Final Destination 2" copied this premise exactly.

The first film began with a young man having a vision of the plane that he was about to fly on exploding before it took off. As a result of his vision, he saved the lives of several of his friends, or helped them to momentarily cheat death. This was the same idea in the second film. Here, it was a young woman named Kimberly (A.J. Cook), who had a vision of being involved in a massive traffic accident before it happened. She blocked the traffic and saved several of the commuters, who would have otherwise been killed in the crash. Afterward, death came for each commuter who would have died in the accident.

I didn't mind the identical plot structure being carried over from the first film. It worked well in the first film, and it was somewhat effective here as well. The problem with "Final Destination 2" was that much of the movie played like b-movie horror, where the first film was a little less over the top. Here, with obviously more expensive special effects than a b-movie, the characters got impaled, decapitated, sliced in half, charred, smashed, exploded, and more. It wasn't until the end that it seemed to have fun with this, where it finally admitted to the audience with a rather ridiculous, yet humorous closing scene that it was in fact more along the lines of b-movie fare. And thinking of it in this way, it wasn't all that bad of a film. The death scenes were creative even if they were noticeably computer enhanced and overly gory, much like a b-movie.

In the end, I didn't necessarily care about the story or its characters, but not caring about or even necessarily liking all of the characters made it an enjoyable relief to watch death come for them. Many critics stated that "Darkness Falls" played like a b-movie. I would have to disagree with them and say that "Final Destination 2" was much closer to the b-movie genre. "Darkness Falls" was not so horrible of a movie. It was just an easy target for critics who only look at films analytically, instead of basing some of their review on the actual enjoyment of the movie.

"Final Destination 2" Review written January 31, 2003, CTF.

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