3 out of 5

Directed by: David R. Ellis

Though ultimately earning less than its predecessor, Final Destination 2 is, to me, what defined the FD franchise. The bones were absolutely set in place by the first film, but that was a flick of confuddled tones, wanting to be something darker and more adult with camp elements, only to have a teen cast and teen horror tropes splattered on to it. However, it’s undeniable that the structure is, essentially, the same: a group of kids “escape” death due to a premonition of a forthcoming car accident; then discover that there’s no escaping death, as the survivors become victims of ridiculous fates, one by one. And while FD 2 definitely amped up the Rube Goldberg death device concept – where a string of almost-accidents keep happening, until the final (generally ironic) boop that kills ya – Final Destination had that too, if to a lesser degree, and muddled with some excessive visual supernatural overtones.

The sequel gets to benefit, then, from the strong idea, plus knowing where to fortify things, by having a consistent tone, and dumping the more somber angle by playing up the over-the-top camp of the kills – aiming for jumps and groans over gross outs or outright tension. And nestled into this are some good swerves, such as an immediate redirect as to whom we think the film might focus on, kind of poking at the forced-teen-slasher bit of the previous flick.

Ali Larter carries over as the experienced guide to this business (also carrying arguably equally poor dialogue as the first movie, alas; it’s tough to be the level headed one who has to explain everything); Tony Todd shows up again to give us some lore expansion; but otherwise, we’re mainly with A.J. Cook and Michael Landes as our leads, with the writers very wisely making them aware of the events that occurred before, immediately buy into the whole inevitable-death thing, and thus not require the runtime to convince the audience – we very much get down to business, ASAP. This could easily go awry, of course, but Cook and Landes are good blank slates for this, playing it straight in the face of farcical events, with director David R. Ellis / editor Eric Sears doing an excellent job of weaving scenes to scenes logically, and making the guessing game of what’s going to kill who quite a bit of fun.

Final Destination 2 doesn’t quite broach a next level to become a great movie – nothing really elevates it beyond its genre – but it’s a flick that knows and nails exactly what it’s going for.