“What did you think?” I asked my daughter.
"It was okay," she said. "About equal to the first one."
I thought so, too, but if the second one is no better, no worse than the first one, why make it? Money, I know. Money. But definitely not for "art." There's nothing really artistic about these movies, and no one is pretending that they are going to be changing cinema forever by making the Final Destination movies.
Bludworth. What a wasted character. I've looked ahead, and I know he's the character recurring the most in the series. I still hold out hope that his character will eventually be developed and mean something. In the first film, it felt like they didn't know who he was or what to do with him. Same feeling in this sequel. He basically plays the same one scene role here. In fact, I'd say less effectively, as he comes off a little too hammy, not as creepy or as eerie as in the original.
Alex (Devon Sawa) does off camera -- never makes an appearance in this film. Not a big deal. So he was killed by brick, we're told. But the whole point of these films is to see how the characters die. Just being told that the main character in the previous film died someone in the timeline between that film and this film feels wrong, like the film is breaking a promise to the viewers.
Clear (Ali Larter) does return, but I have to admit I'm not happy with her part in this film. Honestly, it almost felt like she could have died off screen and that would have been okay. I've noticed that many of the deaths in the series are "shockers" -- just shown on screen for a second or two. Clear's is like that. Others are long, drawn out affairs... they tease that they will die in a variety of ways, then maybe they "survive" everything teased, until they don't.
I'm not sure I'm a fan of showing human death on screen anyway, as there's no "good method" to do it. These films aren't so much about human mortality and the inevitability of dying as they are about finding a way to make a snuff film feel acceptable.
For the moment, I'm not sure I like the way Death is presented here. Does Death really need to go out of his way to find graphic, bizarre, absurd ways to kill the people who somehow avoided their "fates" in the first place? And when would the original deaths need to involve groups? Even the original deaths are a little over-the-top, and most people don't die in horrible airplane crashes or multiple-car pileups caused by huge logging trucks.
If I kept writing, I'd probably quickly move my rating down to 1 star, but I’ll keep my assessment as is and see what the rating for Final Destination 3 brings.
Rating: 2.5/5 stars
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