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FINAL DESTINATION 2

David R. Ellis's follow-up to the 2000 "can you cheat death?" horror thriller is a slight improvement. The acting is still abysmal, but the pleasure of watching a victim go from one lethal situation to the next is enhanced by a greater degree of camp and voyeuristic creepiness.

As in the first Destination, an unwitting individual has a premonition about a pending calamity, and despite efforts to forestall fate, it happens anyway, though not exactly as predicted. Here a college student (A.J. Cook) foresees a brutal traffic pile-up while en route to a spring-break holiday. This opening freeway scene, with its ingeniously orchestrated eviscerations and impalings, gets the prize for best carnage, but the best suspense comes in the episode about a lottery winner who goes fishing for a ring down a drain disposal. It's not The Seventh Seal by any stretch, but it is trite, queasy fun. (98 minutes) At the Apple Valley, Entertainment, Flagship, Holiday, Providence Place Mall 16, and Showcase cinemas.

By Tom Meek

Issue Date: February 7 -13, 2003