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Review
by Michael Wyzard
View
This Trailer
 Before
I get started on this, I have a confession to make. Here goes nothing.
I... never saw the first Final Destination.
I know, I know. Was I living under a rock?
But it's true, and I have no excuse. While everyone around me talked
about nothing but Final Destination this and Final Destination
that, and "Final Destination changed my life in so many ways,
I'm such a better person now," or "Final Destination is like
kissing the very face of God," I could only sit and weep. I had missed
Final Destination at the theater. And, by the time it had come
out on video, I'd forgotten all about it, so that was pretty much that.
Now, luckily enough, comes Final Destination
2, so I have the opportunity to miss it all over again.
(As an aside, is it me, or is Final
Destination 2 the most senseless title for a film since Neverending
Story 2? If we assume the heroes involved in Final Destination
1 reached said final destination by film's end, then you can't call
the sequel Final Destination 2, as there can't be any more final
destinations than the final destination, which we've already
seen. Conversely, if the heroes didn't reach the final destination in
the first film, and are just getting to it now, then the first film
should have been called Penultimate Destination, or Just a
Few More Miles To The Final Destination, or something. I'm sorry,
it's all just so retarded.)
When I first saw the trailer for Final
Destination 2, the highway scenes with the tractor trailers made
me think more of that Kurt Russell road-trip film I also never saw a
few years back than the first Final Destination (Breakdown,
in case you'd forgotten the title too). Luckily, the trailer quickly
moves away from those scenes, and I was once again free not to think
about Kurt Russell. This left me to reminisce fondly on the original,
"classic" Final Destination. Well, the commercials anyway, which
involved a bunch of hot, bouncy young things -- one of whom seems to
be able to tell when she's about to die -- and their uncanny ability
to not get on planes that are destined to crash. Clunky Hollywood metaphysics
like this tend to turn me off pretty quickly, and the only thing that
kept me watching the original trailer was the hope that the planes might
get wise and chase down the kids in the hopes of luring them inside,
like Maximum Overdrive or any of the Jaws sequels. Unfortunately,
this never materialized in the trailer, meaning I never materialized
in the theater to watch the film.
Even without seeing the original, I can surmise there must have been
just loads of unanswered questions in it, or they wouldn't have dared
making this sequel. If the past ten years of movie-making have proven
anything, its that Hollywood is loaded with fresh, unique ideas for
feature films; with so many great ideas ready to go, it's not like they'll
just toss out sequels on a whim or anything.
The trailer for Final Destination 2 gives me the impression that
the sequel will continue to explore the ham-fisted stoner concepts of
fate and bad metaphysics that were most likely pivotal to the first
film. Additionally, the trailer shows us that if you liked the bouncy
hot young things avoiding doom in the original, you might be interested
in a further ninety minutes of young, bouncy hotness. Yes, please!
The trailer begins by asking us to ponder the heady ideas of highway
safety, and does this by showing several scenes of potential highway
trouble. So you'll know to avoid such accidents: don't drive a tractor
trailer while guzzling liters of cheap beer; don't douse yourself with
scalding hot coffee while driving; and please, don't be a leather-clad
motorcyclist racing through traffic. (I couldn't tell what his hurry
was -- maybe he was late for an audition with the John Woo flick filming
a few exits down the way). Most importantly, when driving, pay attention
for clumsy Hollywood foreshadowing, such as a child in a passenger window
smashing two toy cars together at you. Sadly, none of the trailer's
heroes follow this sensible advice. The truck's chains snap, sending
huge logs rolling down the highway. This catastrophe, when mixed with
the sheer volume of idiocy mentioned above, make it obvious that we're
watching a typical day on Danger Highway (exit 14 off the New Jersey
Turnpike). I knew I shoulda taken that left turn at Albuquerque!
Other scenes of danger in this trailer include seeing a guy reach into
a garbage disposal to retrieve a ring (squirm moment!). We also see
a different guy in a hospital bed next to some oxygen tanks, looking
at the candles on his birthday cake, followed by a CGI explosion. (You
can go ahead and call this fate if you want; if you're the sort of person
to position an open flame next to an oxygen tank, I'm going to be charitable
and let you, a future charred burn victim, call it whatever you want.)
We see a fire escape daring to pounce upon a prone, topless guy straight
off the cover of YM (is there going to be an impalement? I'm actually
kinda curious). In short, if you love to see accidents happen (or almost
happen, in these cases) to really cute people, this would be a good
movie to check out if some local frat house isn't burning down that
night.
 The
other promise made by the trailer is, of course, the reason for all
these accidents. We learn that maybe these tragedies can be averted
by one young lady with a power to see the future, or maybe not, it's
not really clear. Some dialogue also tells us that maybe Death itself
has a score to settle with these meddling kids. The line is something
like "Being alive after we were supposed to die caused a rift in death's
design." That, coupled with the movie's website (www.deathiscoming.com;
why didn't a mortuary association take that one already?) suggest that
this movie will push the idea that you can't avoid your fate. That,
of course, is bollocks: what if your fate is to have some close calls?
Bad metaphysics like this remind me of a Jean-Claude Van Damme film
(too many things remind me of Van Dammage, actually, but that's another
story) called Timecop, where he played a time-traveling cop going back
in time to stop crooks who went to change the past in their favor. Part
of the premise involved the idea that if you went back in time and met
yourself, the two of you couldn't make contact or there'd be a Big Explosion.
Why? Well, obviously they wanted a Big Explosion at the end of the film,
though it wasn't explained much beyond that. Final Destination 2 promises
a similar scenario, wherein people want the bouncy young hot things
in danger, and so make up some totally arbitrary way of putting them
in the path of that danger, like "a rift in deaths design." You have
to love films where the plot exists only as a method of getting a hero
to the next scene where they jump out of a helicopter or, in this case,
run away from death with their shirts off.
Adding more confusion, there is a short clip in the trailer of your
traditional "psycho's clipping collection" scene, where some sicko has
a book or wall devoted to newspaper clippings, in this case of accidents
happening to the hot young bouncy things. So maybe there's some baddie
who's killing these kids off (because of What They Did Last Summer?).
Should we care? I don't really see why. Especially when frat houses
are almost never far away, and gasoline is so relatively inexpensive
to a movie ticket.
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