Review: Final Destination 2

You know, I was already uncomfortable driving behind those big logging trucks. I didn't really need the extra level of anxiety.

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The decade of the aughts remains one of my bigger blind spots when it comes to the horror cannon. I tend to check out all of the important current releases, and I've certainly devoted plenty of my time to scares of the seventies and eighties, but my horror fandom went dormant around the turn of the century and I've been slow to go back and close the gap.* That means I have only scratched the surface of the Saw franchise, and I haven't yet Hostel-ed or Paranormal Activity-ed. My bias is that this was a down time in American horror cinema, punctuated only by the occasional 28 days Later or Trick R' Treat to provide quality frights. Today I'll be testing that bias, ever so slightly, by diving into one of the more popular franchises to get its start in the 2000's. My wife had already watched the inaugural Final Destination, so I'm joining the party slightly late with the first sequel. While part two is a continuation from the first movie and even features recurring characters, It didn't take long to realize that I would not be at a disadvantage having skipped the original.

To call Final Destination 2, and by extension I presume the Final Destination franchise, a "one-trick pony" would be doing a disservice to ponies of limited talents. Final Destination 2 is more like a pony that can do one, relatively complex trick very well, but doesn't even attempt anything else a pony would do, like trotting or stamping or swishing its tail about to shoo away flies. The central conceit is that a group of people narrowly avoid a violent death on the highway, thanks to the premonition of the main character who blocks the entrance ramp before the tragedy can befall them (although many others are not so lucky.) Unfortunately for them, this reprieve has disrupted Death's plans, and he's pissed off about it. The rest of the film involves the characters getting picked off, one by one, in crazy accidents following the order that they were supposed to die on the highway, and trying to figure out how to stop the curse before it makes its way to the ones we are actually meant to care about as a viewer.

Final Destination is all about dealing death with panache. Each sequence that ends with the brutal dismemberment of a character is an elaborate set piece in which several dangerous elements are introduced and the audience is left wondering which ones will be fake-outs and which ones will play a role in the cartoonishly over-the-top carnage. In a vacuum, every one of these set pieces is a lot of fun. Director David Ellis wrings plenty of queasy anticipation out of each scenario, and I generally found the imaginative formula held up even as the novelty of the approach faded away over the film's run time. That is fortunate, because there is really nothing else to grasp on to in this movie. The script, while strong at the kills, it highly deficient in the dialogue, character development, and mythology departments. The acting ranges from decent to atrocious, and I was surprised that the worst offender is actually the main returning character from the first film. It's possible that the franchise goes in some unexpected directions in future installments, but I've now seen part three, and it is more of the same. Now, having watched two of these movies back to back, I can still see the appeal and expect that I'll revisit this universe on occasion to get a fix of the very specific type of horror they provide, but I don't see much point in reviewing more than one of them here on 31 for 31. My thoughts on the framework are going to remain the same, and nothing else will likely change enough to be worthy of comment. I'm already finding it difficult to differentiate the characters and kills between parts two and three, and I've just watched them this week. Anyway, if you like ponies, this one does a pretty cool trick you should probably check out at some point. Just don't expect anything else and you won't be disappointed.

*  As I've outlined before in Found or Forgotten, the precise same statement could be made about my heavy metal fandom. Could the two things be potentially related? I don't know, but it is sort of interesting to think about what commonality the two artforms share and why I didn't seem to have time for them as I was establishing my early, post-college life.