Final Destination 2 Movie Review – "We're All Going to Die."

Runtime: 90 minutes
Release Date: January 31, 2002
Rating: R
Director: David R. Ellis


Kimberly (A.J. Cook, Ripper) is a college kid ready to enjoy spring break with her friends. After talking to her father, she climbs in a car with her best female friend and two male friends. They stop just before getting on the highway, and she flips the radio from a report on Flight 180 to music. When they finally get on the highway, a truck carrying logs crashes on the road, leading to a massive wreck that leaves everyone dead. Kimberly then looks up and realizes that they're not yet on the highway and that she had a premonition. When she blocks the road, a local sheriff named Thomas hops out of his car to talk to her. They see the car wreck happen from the safety of the road, but the cop saves her life before the wreck takes the lives of her friends.


Like with all the Final Destination movies, death decides to come back for those who escaped. After researching premonitions online, Kimberly learns that Alex and Carter from the first film died. Though Clear survived, she checked herself into a mental institution and plans to stay there for the rest of her life. She and Thomas go to see Clear, who warns them of death's design. Fearing they didn't believe her, she checks herself out and follows them, arriving in time to warn them to look out for future premonitions and to warn the others that death is coming.


Final Destination 2 decided to increase the gore of the first film, which is something that every other film tried to do. Instead of something simple like a hanging, this film makes sure that everyone dies in the worst way possible. We get a teenage boy crushed like jelly by a piece of glass falling on his head, a paramedic shaking a car with the jaws of life which causes a log to go through a woman's body, a woman decapitated by an elevator door, and a man ripped into pieces by a flying wire fence, and that doesn't even include the explosion that occurs towards the end of the film.


This all leads me to a painful conclusion: Final Destination 2 is even better than the original. We get the hunky Michael Landes (who I always remember from either Special Unit 2 or Lois and Clark) popping up as a cop who not only believes in premonitions but actually tries to help, and we get the adorable Keegan Connor Tracy turning up as a bitchy city girl. We even have A.J. Cook taking over the lead role. If you haven't seen Ripper yet, do it now.


Final Destination 2 didn't really need to make a connection to the first film, but it makes that connection in a fairly realistic way. We learn that death wants these people not just because they escaped the highway crash, but because they each escaped death once before. Each character survived a deadly situation before because of Flight 180. One woman missed dying in a gas leak because she didn't arrive at her hotel due to hitting Terry in the first movie, and someone else avoided death because he helped clean up Billy's body from the train death.


While I don't watch the second movie as much as I watch the first one, after seeing Final Destination 2 again recently, I might start watching it a little more.