\Final Destination,"" released in 2000, achieved surprise success at the box office. The film was standard fare in many respects due to reliance on typical-teen-horror film characteristics, but it had a somewhat fresh premise: the attempt to cheat Death itself. With a hit on their hands, you can just picture the New Line executives lining up the unending sequels. As expected, ""Final Destination 2"" falls flat on its face as a film; the already stretched premise gets distorted beyond any logic, intelligent dialogue is nearly non-existent and most of the deaths are marvels of special effects rather than chilling climaxes. As a whole, ""Final Destination 2"" manages to fall short of expectations--expectations that were pretty slim to begin with.
The story opens up with Kimberly (AJ Cook). Thanks to a premonition, she blocks a highway on-ramp and prevents numerous people from dying in a horrific car accident. This occurs exactly one year after the premonition in the original ""Final Destination,"" so naturally the connection is made and Ali Larter reprises her role as Clear Rivers, the sole survivor from the first film. Death is once again hunting down the mistakenly saved souls in predictable and gory order. However, after a visit to the Candyman (Tony Todd), the group is given the clue that new life will stop death. The rest of the film is comprised of spectacular but soulless deaths and further convolutions of Death's design.
Director David Ellis shows hints of promise with his stylistic control of the camera, especially in the incredibly well-put-together premonitions. This is no more clear than in Kimberly's first premonition on the highway; the shots are well composed and planned, the editing is crisp and the special effects are perfectly utilized. Ellis never reaches this same level of success anywhere else in the movie, but perhaps a better project will give him room to develop in the future. The cast is mostly second-rate and unrecognizable, other than Ali Larter, whose career has been unimpressive to say the least.
Granted, buying an admission ticket to ""Final Destination 2"" requires a certain amount of suspended belief. Sadly, the film asks viewers to check their brain at the door. Apparently connections to the original ""Final Destination"" crew sends Death into a tailspin, hunting the new prey in reverse order, but only if one of the crew doesn't have a child in the meantime. Between the strained premise and the total lack of realism in the film's details, the movie turns out to be mildly successful as a comedy--you'll be laughing at this garbage for 100 minutes straight.
