Spooky Season 2022: Final Destination 2 Review

The first Final Destination was a surprise hit that turned in a good profit, so like any other horror movie with a good premise that does financially well it got a sequel. Final Destination 2 came out nearly 3 years after its predecessor and follows a very similar storyline to the first. The film follows Kimberly (Cook) who has a premonition of a highway accident which results in the deaths of her friends and several others. After blocking the ramp leading onto the highway and saving several people from the accident, Kimberly begins to realize that death is stalking the survivors after they slowly start dying one by one and enlists the help of Clear Rivers, (Larter) the sole survivor from the first film. 

Final Destination 2 is a clear example that bigger doesn’t always mean better. The film boasts a lot more characters this time around which also means a lot more deaths but sadly the characters are even worse and way less developed than they were in the first film. There’s barely any attempt to flesh any of them out and some of them are only there for a couple scenes before they ultimately bite it. This film adds a few new rules to the lore that for the most part just makes the fairly simple premise a bit more convoluted and confusing. It’s also a bit frustrating how most of the sequels develop these new rules only for the next installment to completely drop them or come up with something entirely new. 

Where Final Destination 2 makes up for its shortcomings is in the opening highway sequence and every death that follows. This might not have a lot going on underneath the surface, but the filmmakers clearly put a lot of thought into these deaths and the franchise has rarely been as creative as it was here. Each death sequence is equally thrilling as it is fun to watch that sets up a lot of red herrings before the actual death happens. The blood and violence have been turned up quite a bit as well and each death is suitably gnarly to watch. The opening highway crash is probably the best thing this franchise has ever produced and is just as enthralling to watch now as it was nearly 20 years ago. It’s just complete chaos and starts this film off with a bang. 

Cook, Larter and Michael Landes as Thomas Burke are all solid, but the rest of the acting is pretty mediocre or serviceable at best despite the cast working well enough together. There isn’t anyone who’s flat out horrible and everybody fits their roles well enough but nobody else is really given that much to do and it doesn’t help that they’re playing such forgettable characters. This is the rare film in the franchise where most of the characters are actually working together and share a lot of scenes throughout, so it makes this standout in a good way at least. It’s nice to see Tony Todd back again but his cameo feels pointless this time around and it doesn’t help that he’s forced to dump exposition the entire time he’s on screen. 

In the end, Final Destination 2 drops the dread filled and serious tone of the first film and instead settles for something a lot sillier and more fun to watch for better or worse. This sequel is merely a very run-of-the-mill and formulaic entry whose attempts to change up the formula don’t entirely work but still makes for an entertaining and breezy 90-minutes with enough good kills to satisfy. It’s also very refreshing to see one of these films have a somewhat happy ending that hasn’t been undone in any of the sequels yet.  

still courtesy of New Line Cinema

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Connor Carey

www.connorsmoviereviews.com/