Final Destination 2

release year: 2003
genre: suspense
viewing setting: home DVD, 8/12/06

synopsis: Once again, a group of people cheat Death, and then begin to die.

impressions: Same as the first movie except it's a different group of people who don't all know each other...and they eventually turn to the sole survivor of the first incident for help. This was entertaining, and had a lot of gory deaths and shock moments; a lot of the deaths are very sudden. My only problem is one of logic: first these movies show that you can cheat Death, then they say that you really can't, and then they lay out a way where maybe you _can_, for good...and then that doesn't really seem to work. What are the "rules" here? The viewer needs to know so they have some framework to understand what's going on. However, this ends up being a lot like the Nightmare on Elm Street series, in that the "rules" keep changing and the characters are never really safe. By contrast, even in Friday the 13th part 4 the "rules" made sense; if you got a steel door between you and Jason, it was a safe bet that he wasn't going to get through it. Oh yeah, he'd be on the other side, waiting for you, maybe even with a machete or a meat hook - but for the time being, you were safe, dammit. There was a "rule" in place. Not so here, where even the ending casts doubt onto anything put forth in the movie.

something this movie has that no other movie has: A stupid kid stirring up a flock of birds, which then leads to a gigantic weight being dropped onto the kid, pulverizing him.

acting: It was good; if anything, these actors were a bit better than those in the first movie. It helped a lot that the victim pool this time was more widely varied and didn't know each other before they all escaped Death together.

final word: Good sequel, but the premise and details need to be firmed up a bit.

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