Just as good as the first

Rating: 9/10 (1 July 2006)

The movie opens by referencing the first film, Final Destination. We learn that this is the one year anniversary of the explosion of Flight 180 (the big event that triggered the events of Final Destination). A girl is sleeping in her room with the television on. The program is a news broadcast covering the anniversary. The guest on the show talks about how death has a design, a plan and if that plan is interrupted, people are more likely to die in strange ways just so that death's plan is not too messed up. This was also the plot of the first Final Destination movie and being a direct sequel, we know this will be a major part of Final Destination 2.
After the scene setting the stage for the movie, we move into the actual plot line of the movie. Kimberly Corman (A.J. Cook) and 3 of her friends are taking a road trip. They are stopped on an on-ramp to get onto the freeway. We see Kimberly merge onto the road and keep driving, and there is a huge accident, visually impressive. Even this multiple vehicle (and I do mean multiple) accident comes up with some creative way to kill folks. Everyone dies. The scene shifts and Kimberly is still on the on-ramp. It was only a vision and it freaked her out. She stops her van sideways on the on-ramp and nobody gets on the highway. The officer trying to get Kimberly to calm down is a witness to a horrible accident that happens just as Kimberly said it would. She saved the life of everyone on the on-ramp, except for her three friends who are still in the van as it gets run down by a semi.
Back at the police station, Kimberly is insisting that everyone who survived will die in a specific order and only the police officer on the scene believes her. It isn't until the first survivor dies that people start believing. To try to figure this out and find a way to beat it, Kimberly goes to get help from Clear Rivers (Ali Larter), the only survivor from Flight 180, and the only survivor from the aftermath. The rest of the movie follows Kimberly as she tries to save everyone from being randomly killed. She continues to have visions and picks up on signs of what may be coming.
The real joy of this movie is in the creative and inventive death scenes. Sure, some are a little gruesome and I cringed a couple of times, but they were so well thought out that I couldn't wait to see how the next person would be killed. Final Destination 2 is not any different from the first movie, but because of the creativity of the deaths, I didn't mind at all. I like how the movie teased me with one kind of death but turned it into something completely different but equally impressive. Anytime I thought I figured out a death, the movie turned it to something else. It kept me on edge waiting for the next kill and the movie had a perfect flow to it. I'm not sure if the movie is better than the first, but it is just as good. If you've seen the first movie, you know exactly what you are getting into. If you haven't, this is a fun movie with a lot of creative kills. The movie exceeds the quality of its subject matter and is actually a pretty good movie.