Country: United States
Genre: Action/ Suspense/ Horror
Director: David R. Ellis
Year: 2003
Rating: 
TRASH CINEMA HIGHLY RECOMMENDED MOVIE
By all rights, Final Destination 2 should kinda suck. The actors and dialog deliver puerile highschool dramatics. I’m not even going to mention the actors’ names, they’re so utterly disposable. The plot, which starts out with the elegance of a koan, degenerates into pure nonsense.
As you might remember, the general pattern of the series is: the hero has a premonition of a disaster and prevents a bunch of people from dying, but Death refuses to be cheated, arranging Rube Goldberg-esque accidents to befall the survivors, one by one.
But Final Destination has an ace up it’s sleeve, which is the action scenes, which are clever, suspense, horrifying and funny. Full credit for the effectiveness of the action scenes goes to director David R. Ellis, who stages them flawlessly.
Take the opening sequence, a freeway pileup. Director David R. Ellis fully exploits the opportunity to satirize peoples’ unsafe driving habits. Most of them are there: drinking hot coffee while driving, weaving through lanes, taking drugs, flashing your tits at other drivers, and so on. The only major one the filmmakers missed was cell phones and PDA’s. When the pileup finally comes, the action is ferocious, but surprisingly not very graphic or mean spirited. It seems that Death has a sense of humor, but he doesn’t seem to be a sadist.
Another highlight is a trip to the dentist, for much the same reasons. Ellis highlights our quite sensible fears of needles and the dentist’s drill.
The death scenes in Final Destination 2 leave you exhilarated with their energy and creativity, but don’t leave a sour taste in your mouth from misanthrophy or misogyny.
Call me sick, but I was chortling with delight over the end credits.