Final Destination 2

Final Destination 2
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	David R. Ellis
Produced by	Craig Perry Warren Zide Toby Emmerich Jeffrey Reddick
Screenplay by	Eric Bress J. Mackye Gruber
Story by	Jeffrey Reddick Eric Bress J. Mackye Gruber
Based on	Characters by Jeffrey Reddick
Starring	Ali Larter A. J. Cook Michael Landes
Music by	Shirley Walker
Cinematography	Gary Capo
Editing by	Eric Sears
Studio	Zide/Perry Productions
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date(s)	January 31, 2003 (2003-01-31)
Running time	90 minutes
Country	United States Canada
Language	English
Budget	$26 million
Box office	$92,426,405

Final Destination 2 is a 2003 American supernatural horror film and the sequel to the 2000 film Final Destination and was directed by David R. Ellis. It was written by Jeffrey Reddick, Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber. The film stars Ali Larter, A. J. Cook, Michael Landes and Tony Todd. Cook portrays a teenager who "cheats death" after having a premonition of herself and others perishing in a horrific pile-up and uses it by saving herself and a handful of other people, but is continued to be stalked by Death by claiming back their lives which should have been lost in the pile-up.

It debuted at No. 2 on the Box Office Top 10 and remained in the top 10 for 3 weeks. It was followed by Final Destination 3.

Plot

A year after the explosion of Flight 180, Kimberly Corman (A. J. Cook), is preparing to go with her friends to Daytona Beach on a vacation and while she's driving, she has a premonition of a pile-up on Route 23, killing everyone involved. She stalls her car on the entrance ramp with her friends Shaina (Sarah Carter), Dano (Alex Rae), and Frankie (Shaun Sipos). This stops teacher Eugene Dix (T.C. Carson), mother Nora Carpenter (Lynda Boyd) and her son Tim (James Kirk), pregnant Isabella Hudson (Justina Machado), lottery winner Evan Lewis (David Paetkau), drug addict Rory Peters (Jonathan Cherry), businesswoman Kat Jennings (Keegan Connor Tracy), and police officer Thomas Burke (Michael Landes) from entering the highway. After Tom arrives and questions Kimberly about the inconvenience, her vision becomes a reality. While those who were spared stare in shock, an 18-wheeler truck crashes into Kimberly's SUV killing Shaina, Dano and Frankie.

While the survivors are questioned at the police station, they are informed of the events of the previous film, but only Kimberly takes it seriously. Later that day, Evan dies when a fire escape ladder slides down and impale his right eye. After hearing of his death, Kimberly believes Death is reclaiming the survivors. The next day, she visits Clear Rivers (Ali Larter), who has checked herself into an asylum in order to isolate herself from as many dangers as possible, so that Death can't catch her. The only advice she can offer Kimberly is to save herself.

Kimberly decides to ignore Clear's warning, saying to her that she is a coward, and begins to seek out the other survivors, but is too late to save Tim from being crushed by a glass pane. Clear decides to help Kimberly and takes her to see mortician William Bludworth (Tony Todd). Bludworth tells the group that they can escape Death via new life, which they interpret as helping Isabella deliver her unborn baby. Isabella is taken into custody while the others meet to keep each other alive. The grieving Nora leaves to prepare for her son's funeral but her head gets trapped in a malfunctioning elevator doors and she is decapitated. The survivors learn that Isabella has gone into labor.

As the group races to reach Isabella, they discover that they were all unknowingly spared from Death once before because of events set in motion by the survivors of Flight 180. At the same time, a deputy watching over Isabella discovers that she is going to have a baby, and takes her in her van to rush her in the hospital. He drives too fast, and passes over the survivors, with Kat losing control of the car, causing it to run off the road and crash. Eugene suffers a severe injury and is rushed to the hospital.

In the meantime, a family who witnessed the accident has arrived to help the remaining passengers. Rory saves their son Brian (Noel Fisher) from being struck by a rescue vehicle that has arrived on the scene. Their attempt to help Kat out of the vehicle fails when Kat's airbag deploys, and knocks her head into a sharp pipe, instantly impaling her. She drops her cigarette, which falls into some gasoline, and ignites, the fire travels to a news van, which explodes and sends a barbed wire fence towards Rory, who is then trisected.

Tom, Kimberly and Clear take a truck continue to the hospital. On the way, Kimberly has another vision of what she thinks is "Dr. Kalarjian" trying to strangle Isabella. When they arrive, they witness Isabella giving birth. They rejoice, until Kimberly has another vision that Isabella was never supposed to die in the pile-up crash. Clear searches for Eugene, and Kimberly has a vision with someone with bloody hands driving a white van into the lake. Meanwhile, when Clear finds Eugene, she opens the door, not knowing that the air conditioners are closed, and that nitrous oxide is leaking in the room. The wire plugs out from the jack, and a sparkle fires out, which causes a huge explosion in the room killing both Eugene and Clear. Kimberly finds out that her hands are filled with cuts from the explosion and realizes that she is the person in the vision, and that the lake is outside and that the white van is an ambulance truck. Kimberly makes a bold move by stealing an ambulance and driving into a nearby lake to sacrifice herself and to save Tom. She nearly drowns but is saved by Burke and then revived in the hospital by Dr. Kalarjian, which is what her early vision was really about.

Some time later, Kimberly and Tom are having a barbecue with the Gibbons family (the family that helped the survivors after Kat crashed in their yard). The father tells about how his son Brian was saved on the day of the crash in the field by Rory and how Brian is lucky to be alive. Kimberly and Tom, realizing that Brian was supposed to die, stare at him, and suddenly the barbecue grill's gas tank explodes and blows Brian to pieces, and his severed arm lands on his mother's plate as she screams in horror.

Cast

• Ali Larter as Clear Rivers
• A. J. Cook as Kimberly Corman
• Michael Landes as Thomas Burke
• David Paetkau as Evan Lewis
• James Kirk as Tim Carpenter
• Lynda Boyd as Nora Carpenter
• Keegan Connor Tracy as Kat Jennings
• Jonathan Cherry as Rory Peters
• T.C. Carson as Eugene Dix
• Justina Machado as Isabella Hudson
• Tony Todd as William Bludworth
• Sarah Carter as Shaina McKlank
• Alex Rae as Dano Estevez
• Shaun Sipos as Frankie Whitman
• Andrew Airlie as Michael Corman
• Noel Fisher as Brian Gibbons

Alex Browning (Devon Sawa), the main character from Final Destination, only appears in a photo on an article that Officer Burke reads while researching the crash of Flight 180; the article notes that Alex died when hit by a falling brick.

Reception

Critical response

The film received mixed reviews from critics. Review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes reports 47% of critics gave the film positive write-ups based on 107 reviews, with an average rating of 5 out of 10. It's consensus is, "This sequel is a little more than an excuse to stage elaborate, gory scenes of characters getting killed off." While most praised it for its special effects and inventive death sequences, some dismissed it as being 'an average sequel to an average movie'. Nevertheless, this film has received the second highest score amongst the five films in the franchise on Rotten Tomatoes, the first being Final Destination 5 with a score of 61%.

The film has landed on many "best car crash/accidents" lists including one by New York Magazine which cited the highway pile-up scene as the greatest car crash in movie history, calling it "the new gold standard for car-related chaos in cinema". Even acclaimed director Quentin Tarantino was quoted as saying that the opening scene was "a magnificent car action piece". The highway pile up was nominated for "Best Action Sequence" at the 2003 MTV Movie Awards.

Music

Soundtrack

Final Destination 2 (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Film score by Shirley Walker
Released	2003
Genre	Soundtrack Film score
http://walker.filmmusic.com/final_destination_2.html

1. "Main Title" – 2:48
2. "Kimberly's Lake Premonition" – 2:03
3. "Blow-Out" – 1:44
4. "Coincidence-Kimberly Remembers Mom" – 2:27
5. "Killer Kayak" – 1:11
6. "Nora's Turn-Eugene Freaks" – 3:40
7. "Kimberly Goes to See Clear" – 1:51
8. "Kimberly Sees Dr. Kalarjan" – 0:47
9. "Ba Bye Kat & Mustang" – 1:19
10. "Dad and Kimberly" – 0:45
11. "Pigeons" – 2:39
12. "Eugene's Oxygen" – 2:54
13. "New Life" – 1:59
14. "2 Left" – 4:21
15. "We Did It" – 0:40

Songs featured in the motion picture

• "Dance with Me" - Performed by The Sounds
• "Rock'n Roll" - Performed by The Sounds
• "Highway to Hell" - Performed by AC/DC
• "Jon F. Hennessy" - Performed by FT
• "Middle of Nowhere" - Performed by The Blank Theory
• "Vitamin" - Performed by Incubus
• "I Got You" - Performed by (hed) Planet Earth
• "Rocky Mountain High" - Performed by Pete Snell
• "Rocky Mountain High" - Performed by Jude Christodal
• "My Name Is Death" - Performed by Jude Christodal

External links

• Final Destination 2 at the Internet Movie Database
• Final Destination 2 at AllRovi
• Final Destination 2 at Box Office Mojo
• Final Destination 2 at Rotten Tomatoes