Final Destination 2 Reviews

Death is back and still smarting from the trouble caused by those Mt. Abraham high school students who, in FINAL DESTINATION (2000), refused to board a plane destined to blow up with them aboard. One teen's opportune vision bought them a temporary reprieve. But within days they started dying in freak accidents, because it's not nice to fool the Grim Reaper. This time out, level-headed teenager Kimberly Corman (A.J. Cook) has her precognitive moment on a highway on ramp. She sees a log tumble from the back of a flatbed truck, setting off a chain reaction that claims the lives of several motorists, including buff lottery winner Evan (David Paetkau); harried Nora Carpenter (Lynda Boyd) and her teenage son, Tim (James Kirk); highway patrolman Burke (Michael Landes); coked-up slacker Rory (Jonathan Cherry); schoolteacher Eugene Dix (T.C. Carson) and corporate cupcake Kat (Keegan Connor Tracy). Kimberly freezes behind the wheel of her SUV, trapping a line of cars behind her on the ramp; as they honk their horns impatiently, the horrific accident unfolds just as she envisioned. Burke gathers the stunned survivors at the police station, where Kimberly sobs out the story of her premonition. But despite their brush with death, no-one thinks there's anything to it until Evan dies later that day, in a gory mishap involving a malfunctioning garbage disposal, an exploding microwave and a fire-escape ladder that slips at a most inopportune moment. They look to Kimberly for advice; she in turn seeks out Clear Rivers (Ali Larter), the sole survivor of the Mt. Abraham incident. Granted, Clear is hiding out in a padded cell, but she's beaten death for more than a year, so maybe she knows something. As the pool of survivors dwindles gorily, Clear and Kimberly try to figure out a way to beat Death's fearful symmetry forever. Like its popular predecessor, this could well be the bloodiest, most grotesque public service announcement of all time. Fish tanks leaking in perilous proximity to electrical outlets, kitchen fires, balky elevator-door bumpers, exploding air bags and flying barbed wire — just when you think you've imagined the worst, the filmmakers one-up you. But the formula is so rigid that no matter how clever the variations, they're still fundamentally predictable: Any character around long enough to acquire a name is bound to wind up resting in pieces. If this is your idea of fun, step right up.