Better than the first!

Rating: 10/10 (30 July 2006)

We "finally" have a yes answer to the age old movie buff question, "is any sequel better than the original?" In Final Destination 1 we were introduced to the concept that "death has a plan." In the first movie, students on their way to France get off their plane when one of the students has a premonition that the plane is going to explode. Flight 180 does in fact explode and death has to play a little catch-up. The grim reaper methodically and quite creatively tries to finish what he started and send each person to their grave.
In this installment of the Final Destination franchise, another premonition is had by a girl on her way to a cottage. This time a pile-up on the freeway which would have killed several more people, is avoided and death once again has to put his regularly scheduled plan into action. One by one he claims his victims and sends them to their eternal sleep. But after a visit to Clear Waters (Larter, yes that is the character's name), the only survivor still alive from the plane crash in the first film, we find out that all these people had been interfered with in their own death by the flight 180 survivors. So death was going to take care of all of them in one fell swoop.
This time death is not at all happy and decides to have a lot fun with this elusive bunch of death dodgers. The best part of this movie is the seemingly endless ways that these people almost die. With three people working on "Characters, Story and Screenplay" it seems as if the writers sat around and thought of all the coolest ways to have a death scene and then just decided to put all of them in the movie. Everyone is constantly narrowly avoiding their fate until BANG! Their goose gets cooked or crushed or splattered or chopped off.
The script itself is one that was definitely not taken lightly. This is a well thought out storyline and holes were looked for. It is cohesive and leads you down a believable path with a completely unbelievable concept. Even the ending is one that surprises without making you roll your eyes.
The most surprising thing in this movie is the wonderful cinematography. Normally not the kind of movie that most people would relate to great camera work, but Gary Capo (2nd unit DOP on The Last Samurai, Mission: Impossible II, The Thin Red Line) has a keen eye for camera angles to intensify suspense and surprise. And this movie is full of both.
Apart from an over-the-top cameo performance from Tony "Candyman" Todd, the actors do a great job presenting a complex and entertaining look at death and uncertainty. It's hard to tell who is going to make it to the end of this thriller, and compelling to see how each person deals with the events in their own way. It's easy to tell that the film makers actually cared about the characters they had created. Like comedies, the genre of horror films has been passed over as fluff in the history of cinema. But as more and more movie fans become film makers, horror films are becoming all around better films. Peter Jackson (Heavenly Creatures, Lord of the Rings) and Wes Craven (Music of the Heart, Red Eye) have proved that director's starting in the horror genre are quite capable of making big blockbusters. Maybe these great films will one day get the respect they deserve.
If it's my time to go I want my final destination to be a place that they show films as good as this one.