Final Destination 2

Infobox Film
name= Final Destination 2


caption = Theatrical release poster
director = David R. Ellis
writer = Jeffrey Reddick (characters)
J. Mackye Gruber (screenplay)
Eric Bress (screenplay)
producer = Craig Perry
distributor = New Line Cinema
starring = Ali Larter,
A. J. Cook,
Michael Landes,
Keegan Connor Tracy,
Jonathan Cherry,
James Kirk,
Lynda Boyd,
Justina Machado,
Sarah Carter,
TC Carson,
David Paetkau
music = Shirley Walker
released= United States: January 31st, 2003 U.K: February 7th, 2003 Australia: March 6th, 2003
runtime = 90 min.
language = English
budget = ~ $26,000,000
preceded_by = "Final Destination" (2000)
followed_by = "Final Destination 3" (2006)
amg_id = 1:274895
imdb_id = 0309593

"Final Destination 2" is a 2003 supernatural thriller, and sequel to the 2000 hit "Final Destination". It was directed by David R. Ellis and stars A. J. Cook as Kimberly Corman and Ali Larter as Clear Rivers. The film is set in White Plains 2001 after the previous movie and has only two returning characters; Clear Rivers and the mortician William Bludworth. The movie grossed $16,017,141 on its opening weekend in the US, a significant portion of the high it grossed overall. It was a minor hit, debuting in its first week at #2 and falling from then onwards.Cite web|url=http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/m/final_destination_2/numbers.php|title=Final Destination 2 Box Office and Rental Numbers|accessdate=2007-01-15] It is succeeded by "Final Destination 3".

Plot

Like the first movie, which played on the notion of high school kids as survivors, the sequel plays with the notion of 8 strangers from different walks of life (including a schoolteacher, a drug addict and a business woman) as the new group of survivors on Death's List. It has been one year since the tragic explosion of Flight 180. While going on vacation in Daytona Beach, Florida, Kimberly Corman, (played by A. J. Cook (actress)) traveling with her friend Shaina (Sarah Carter) and two other male friends, Dano Royale (Alex Rae) and Frankie Arnold (Shaun Sipos) experiences a vision of a mass pile-up on the highway. A chain holding logs on the back of a truck snaps, sending logs rolling all over the road.

First, a police officer is hit by a log flying through his windscreen , crushing his body and head, A motorcyclist, unable to avoid the pile-up hits his brakes but slides into a huge log, and hits it with a sickening crunch, whereupon he is hit and crushed by his sliding motorcycle. A drug-user hits a log and stops, but is killed by an incoming truck. A smartly dressed business woman hits a log and her van crashes. A mother and son are killed as they hit the same log, causing an explosion. Kimberly's car is flipped over and, trapped, she watches through the window as a young man's car goes up in flames. Seconds later, her car is hit by a truck, killing all four people inside it.

Snapping out of her premonition, sights and sounds Kimberly saw begin to occur in real life. She causes outrage when she blocks the on ramp to the highway, but the signs prove true. The survivors, Eugene (TC Carson), Rory (Jonathan Cherry), Katherine (Keegan Connor Tracy), Nora (Lynda Boyd) and her son Tim (James Kirk) are all held up at the police station and Kim begins to tell everyone about her strange premonition.

They all leave, but one of the survivors dies mysteriously, and Kim begins to suspect that her premonition is really something more. In a mental institution, she meets Clear Rivers (Ali Larter), the sole survivor of Flight 180, who has had similar experience with premonition. She reluctantly accepts Kim's plea for help in spotting the signs to keep her and the others alive, but the deaths have already begun.

Late arrival for Clear. Tim had already died due to a Bulletproof window fell and crush him. The police officer involved in the vision, who initially brought everybody in for questioning, Thomas Burke (Michael Landes), also offers his assistance in keeping everyone alive, but it becomes a race against time as everyone has scattered after dismissing the tales. The enigmatic mortician William Bludworth (Tony Todd) makes another appearance and provides more insight into the workings of Death involving the forces of balance. Due to death has started, they try to to find Isabella Hudson, a pregnant woman. Kimberly realizing that: "Only New Life can Defeat Death".

Cast and Characters

Death's List

*Route 23: While waiting at the on-ramp, Kimberly Corman has a vision of impending disaster on the highway. In her vision, a logging trucks chain snaps, unleashing several logs onto the road ahead of several drivers. Thomas Burke is decapitated when a log bounces through his windshield, and Eugene Hooper falls from his bike and is crushed in half between the still-sliding motorbike and a fallen log. Rory Cunningham's Mustang is plowed into by an oncoming garbage truck, and Kat O'Brien is crushed to death when her vehicle flips upside down over a log. Nora and Tim Carpenter die when their vehicle explodes on impact with Kat's vehicle, and Evan Lewis is run over by a flaming semi as he burns in his car. Kimberly, Shaina, Frank and Dano are killed in their SUV.

"Clues/Notes": At the intro of the film, a badge is reading ROAD TRIP. But keys are blocking the "T", so the badge now reads ROAD RIP.

Before the pile up, a bus full of students are chanting "pile-up".

The banner on the side of the passing school bus reads "Demolish the Mustangs! Smoke their butts!", foreshadowing the destruction of Rory's Mustang.

A news cast on the radio mentions the anniversary of the crash of Flight 180.

Before the accident, the song Highway to Hell by AC/DC was playing on the radio of the SUV (which turns to 66.6 by itself) as well as A Grisly Car Crash by Nervous Norvus.

While driving, Kimberly sees a little boy playing with a red car and a toy truck in his car. He is smashing the truck into the red car and smiling. Kimberly's SUV is red and a truck hit it killing her friends.

After the accident occurs, Kimberly sees a sign reading "Construction Next 180 Feet", referencing Flight 180, the plane that blew up in the first film.

If Alex hadn't gotten his premonition of the Flight 180 explosion in the first film, all the survivors of Route 23 would've died months before the pile up.

*Frankie Arnold: A friend of Kimberly's, who dies seconds after the pile-up. He seems to be the youngest and doesn't like Dano carrying drugs. While waiting in Kim’s SUV, seconds after the highway accident plays out, a speeding semi crashes violently into the vehicle, killing him and his friends inside as the SUV explodes. He would've been the tenth person to die on the pile-up and is second on the list. He is protrayed by Shaun Sipos.

"Clues/Notes": Kimberly would've died with him, but Officer Burke intervened.

*Dano Royale: A friend of Kimberly's, who dies seconds after the pile-up. He is into doing drugs, but not an addict, and is carrying weed when Officer Burke comes up to Kimberly's SUV. While waiting in Kim’s SUV, seconds after the highway accident plays out, a speeding semi crashes violently into the vehicle, killing him and his friends inside as the SUV explodes. He would've been the ninth person to die on the pile-up and is third on death's list. He is protrayed by Alex Rae.

"Clues/Notes": Kimberly would've died with him, but Officer Burke intervened.

*Shaina Gordon: Kimberly's best friend, who dies seconds after the pile-up. From what we see of her, she seems to be quite funny. While waiting in Kim’s SUV, seconds after the highway accident plays out, a speeding semi crashes violently into the vehicle, killing him and her friends inside as the SUV explodes. She would've been the eighth person to die on the pile-up and is fourth on death's list. She is protrayed by Sarah Carter.

"Clues/Notes": Kimberly would've died with her, but Officer Burke intervened.

*Evan Lewis (David Paetkau) is a young man who had recently won the lottery for $250,000. After being saved from the pile-up, he arrogantly dismisses the danger his life is in and heads home after a shopping spree. He discards some leftover noodles by throwing them out of the window into the alley below, and places some Chinese food in the microwave, unaware that a fridge magnet is in the box. As the microwave begins to shoot sparks, he jumps and drops a ring down the drain. As he plunges his hand in the drain to recover the ring, his arm becomes stuck and the food he was cooking catches fire. He attempts to free his arm and put out the fire, but the fire spreads to the rest of his apartment. He then tries to escape his apartment but all the windows slam shut. Breaking a window, he gets out to the fire escape just as his apartment explodes. He then successfully makes it to the ground but then slips on the noodles he discarded earlier, and as he is laying prone, the fire escape ladder slips and impales him through the eyes, killing him instantly. he would've been the seventh person to die on the pile-up and is fifth on death's list, and his death alerts Kimberly and Officer Burke to the nature of what's going to happen.

"Clues/Notes": Upon arriving at his apartment, he slips on a doll without an eye.

Evan has magnet letters on his fridge that spell out "HEY E". When Evan isn't looking, the H falls and the magnets read, "EY E".

In the intro, a picture of Kimberly and Shaina can be seen with a sharp tool. When it was scrolled by a magnifying glass, the sharp tool is now pointing the right eye of Kimberly reading Evan's death.

*Timothy "Tim" Carpenter: The youngest of the survivors (15 years old), he and his mother Nora are seen as having an ideal mother-son relationship. Tim would've been the sixth person to die on the pile-up and is sixth on Death's list. The aquarium in the dentist's office has a leaking pipe, which spurts water onto the wall outlet, shorting it out and causing the gas tanks to malfunction, giving him an overdose of the nitrous oxide he was on as general anesthesia for his operation. A hanging mobile then falls into his open mouth, causing him to begin to suffocate, and he is unable to remove it because of the laughing gas. A nurse, however, notices what is happening and saves him. After narrowly escaping death in the dentist's office, he encounters Kimberly and Officer Burke, who had just arrived on the scene and try to save him by shouting "Tim! The pigeons!" because of Kimberly's vision. Tim misunderstands them and runs into the flock of pigeons on the street, causing a construction accident where a heavy sheet of glass falls on him, crushing him and killing him instantly. He is protrayed by James Kirk.

"Clues/Notes": Just before this scene, Kimberly meets Thomas Burke outside her house and as they face the glass door, she sees a reflection of a flock of pigeons flying behind her and realizes that this is a sign. She tells Thomas that Tim and Nora were going to be killed by pigeons.

He is shown reading Stephen King's "Bag of Bones" the previous night, before going to sleep.

As he is at the dentist's office, multiple pigeons crash into the window.

*Nora Carpenter: She is the oldest of the pile-up survivors. Nora would've been the fifth person to die on the pile-up and is seventh on Death's list. Nora is a widow and mentions this shortly before her death. After her son death's, she becomes very depressed, not caring if she is next until her fate finally arrives. She decides to leave the safety of the other survivors, even though she is next. As she is on the elevator, a man with a box full of prosthetic hook hands tangles up her hair, causing her to get stuck in the elevator doors. As the elevator leaves the floor, she is decapitated. Her death convinces the other survivors of the severity of their situation. She is protrayed by Lynda Boyd.

"Clues/Notes": Moments after Nora leaves the apartment, Rory attempts to put some things away in the closet but accidentally causes several things to fall out. In the shadow, he sees the statue of a man with the shadows of a bunch of hooks from coat hangers, telling him that a man with hooks is going to kill Nora.

*Kat Jennings: A very selfish and direct woman who tends to complain often. She would've been the fourth person to die in the pile-up and eighth on Death's list. As she is driving with the other survivors to find Isabella, they get into another freak car accident and a sharp PVC pipe plunges through their SUV, missing her head by inches. However, when a fireman rams the jaws of life into the side of the car in an attempt to cut her out, the driver airbag deploys, pushing her head back into the pipe, impaling her and killing her instantly. She is protrayed by Keegan Connor Tracy.

"Clues/Notes": Before the accident on Route 23, Kat's death was prevented by the death of Terry Chaney. Kat had been heading for a bed and breakfast, where she would have suffocated with the rest of the guests from a gas leak, but had been prevented from getting to it in time when the bus she was riding hit Terry and splattered her across the street.

*Rory Peters: A drug addict who serves as the film's comic relief. He would've been the third person to die on the pile-up and ninth on Death's list. Knowing that he will die before kimberly he gives her his wallet and keys asking her to go to his apartment and remove his drugs and pornography so as not to upset his mother. He is killed when he is sliced into pieces by swinging barbed wire, released from light poles after an explosion. He is protrayed by Jonathan Cherry.

"Clues/Notes": Moments before Kat was killed, Rory began asking Kimberly if it would be painful when he died. Unsure of the answer, she told him it would be. When he did die, he felt no pain until the last few seconds, something the author made note of.

Before the accident on Route 23, Rory's life had been saved unknowingly by the death of Carter Horton, who's death in front of Rory had scared Rory enough to not want to go to a theater that was doomed to collapse that night.

*Eugene Dix: A motorcyclist who is very skeptic of Death's "design". He would've been the second person to die on the pile-up and is tenth on Death's list. After all of the survivors are rounded up, he asserts his free will and insists he decides his own fate, not Death. However, after Nora dies, he attempts to commit suicide by shooting himself with Burke's gun, but fails when all six shots jam. He then dies along with Clear in the hospital explosion. He is protrayed by TC Carson.

"Clues/Notes": He would have died prior when a student brought a knife to school to stab a teacher. This would have been him, but he was put in Valerie Lewton's position from the first film.

*Officer Thomas Burke: A New York State trooper who gathers everyone together to inform them of what's going on, provides the equipment, and serves as Kimberly's love interest. He was the first to die on the pile-up and is last on Death's list. Burke manages to defeat death and survives the movie but he got sucked in by a woodchipper with Kimberly shown in Final Destination 3 choose your fate. He is protrayed by Michael Landes.

"Clues/Notes": He would have died months prior in a shoot-out while on the job, but he was busy cleaning up the remains of William "Billy" Hitchcock (Flight 180 survivor) at the site of a train accident (Billy died by decapitation in the first "Final Destination").

He was supposed to die right after Eugene but Kimberly intervened by pulling him down.

*Kimberly Corman: The visionary in this film. She is the last one to die on the pile-up and the first on Death's list. She is the one who prevents the pile-up. Because of the few people surviving Flight 180, anything that the survivors did afterwards affected other people, interfering in the deaths planned for them. Thus, if Alex had not had his premonition and everyone had died on Flight 180, then the people in this film would have died months before the pile-up. Kimberly would have died along with her mother in a shoot-out robbery while she went to get some cigarettes, but she was caught up in watching a news special on how a teenager "committed suicide" (this is Tod's death in Final Destination.) Kimberly cheats death and survives in the end of the movie but, by choosing a certain option in Final Destination 3: Choose Your Fate, she and Officer Burke are killed by a wood-chipper. She is portrayed by A.J. Cook.

"Clues/Notes": As she stands on the side of the road trying to explain what she saw to the police officer, a truck leaves the road and plows into her SUV, killing all her friends. She is saved by the police officer, putting her to the bottom of the list.

Other Characters

*Clear Rivers: Returning in this sequel, Clear comes out of her safe self-imprisonment at Stonybrook Institution and helps the new set of survivors, using her knowledge and experiences from the first film. She is the sole survivor of Flight 180. She is killed by an explosion in the hospital while talking to Eugene. She is portrayed by Ali Larter.

*Christopher Corman: Kimberly's father. He is constantly worrying over her safety after his wife's death. He is protrayed by Andrew Airlie.

*William Bludworth: The eccentric and threatening mortician who tells the characters of Death's design. He talked to the first round of survivors in the first film and told them the concept of the design and intervening in it. Here, he tells Kimberly only one thing: "Only new life can defeat death." He also comments that Clear has such "a fire in [her] ", hinting to the fact that he knows how she dies. He is protrayed by Tony Todd.

*Isabella Hudson: A pregnant woman who is supposed to die with the Route 23 survivors. After Isabella's delivery of the baby, Kimberly had a vision that Isabella escaped the pile-up that happened lately. Therfore, Isabella is not marked for death. She is portrayed by Justina Machado.

Alex Browning and Clear Rivers

Clear was fated to be the second to last person to die in the original "Final Destination" (after Billy and before Alex). Due to all of the interventions, by the Paris scene in the first movie the order was Alex, Carter, and Clear. Carter intervened in Alex's death and was subsequently killed next, making the order Clear, then Alex. We learn from Officer Burke's research and also from Clear that Alex was killed when a falling brick hit him in the head. His death was attributed to a gust of wind that dislodged the brick from a nearby building, but it was obvious that Death planned for him to die after Clear. However, Alex pushed Clear out of the way, changing the order and was destined to later die from a flesh-eating virus. Clear states that before the events in Paris, she and Alex cheated Death dozens of times before he was killed.

Devon Sawa (Alexander Chance Browning) does not appear in the film due to a contractual dispute with New Line, so his character was killed off-screen.

Cultural References

As with the first movie, some of the characters have their names taken from horror/suspense movie actors or directors.

:Kimberly Corman - Taken from director Roger Corman:Nora and Tim Carpenter - Taken from director John Carpenter:Evan Lewis - Taken from director Herschell Gordon Lewis, the "Godfather of Gore".:Tim Carpenter - Taken from director Tim Burton

Product placement

The film uses embedded marketing, which includes regular use of the iMac computer brand. Product placement is used to help fund the film.

Censorship

* When the movie first aired on TV in the United States, there were several edits. Aside from the obvious edits of bad language (i.e. shit becomes "baloney/shoot/crap" or fuck becomes "heck/freak/freakin", etc.) there were some edits on the most gruesome scenes. For instance, rather than actually seeing the violent scene, it is implied via sound effects.

* Some examples of edits are explained below:
** Kat being impaled is not shown at all, instead the impact sounds and then it cuts toward the scene where she drops the cigarette onto the stream of leaked gas.
** Rory's death was only shown with blood leaking from his mouth and then it cuts to the next scene.
** The scene where Clear and Eugene are incinerated by the leaking oxygen tank, it is edited down to only showing the explosion.
** Brian being incinerated at a barbecue grill was slightly edited, where his charred severed arm is shown in midair for only a brief second and lands on the table (but we don't actually see the arm on the table since the camera is pointed upward at his mother rather than a full shot).
** Evan's death scene where the ladder impaled him in his eye is not shown. It is shown like the camera is going through his eye, instead of the ladder.

References

External links

* [http://www.deathiscoming.com/ Official site]
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