Final Destination 2
I feel like it’s better than the first.
If you feel like the plot of Final Destination was a little thin, well it does not get stronger with the second film, which is ironic as the film attempts to add more meat to “Death’s Design”
Once again using a cameo appearance by Tony Todd to give this design some kind of face he explains a flaw in Death’s design that I don’t buy at all, but even the story itself noted that this was a stretch in the plot but runs with it because they have nothing else.
This is fine. The weakness of the plot is a small fraction of the movie (which kind of sucks but…), what the second film has going for it was its action sequences. A lot of cash was given to make those death scenes ten times as explosive (literally) than what they were in the first film. This works fondly for me cause that first mass murder scene was as good as anything I saw in an action movie. In fact, if they just change the score from suspense to action it would be just an action movie.
A new set of people mess up Death’s Design and it comes to clean shit up so the newbies get the only oldbie to come back an help them. Ali Larter is the only one who physically came back for the sequel (my best guess is that Devon Sawa and Kerr Smith wanted more money or more substance (while Ali got to be a lead actress in the film because both bowed out). I’ll give credit to Larter playing the lone survivor of the last film that somehow it made Sawa and Smith’s offscreen death sadder (and spoiler alert! Ali’s onscreen death sadder as well).
Also, to make up for the plot the film is a little more comedic with the suspense of when and how they were gonna die. the Jump scares sometimes ended with humorless relief, before a sudden gruesome death. Very Nice!
Interesting cast of victims as well. As would lay money that for money and production reasons the cast did not star a series of pretty white kids with problems. Hollywood understands the problem but especially back then moved slowly to solve it so I assume that the film was shot somewhere in Vancouver, and this force them to use certain actors. Not that the cast was not pretty (TC Carson from Living Single is a beautiful black man). They could have been trying for a different direction, which was not a bad idea considering what strong death scenes they employed.
Final Destination 2, was bigger, better but cheesier. Particularly, Tony Todd’s cameo felt like he was Freddy Krugger in A Nightmare on Elm Street part 3 vs. in the first one where he at least felt more like Krugger in the original. Definitely worked for me.
