FINAL DESTINATION 2

'''Final Destination 2''' is a 2003 horror film, and sequel to the 2000 film ''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 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 $46,455,802 it grossed overall. It was a minor hit, debuting in its first week at #2 and falling from then onwards.^[1]

Contents

Plot

Cast & Characters

Alex Browning & Clear Rivers

Deaths

Original Design

Actual Deaths

Survivors

Rating

References

External links

Plot

It has been one year since the tragic explosion of Flight 180. While going on vacation, Kimberly Corman, (played by A.J. Cook) traveling with her friend Shaina (Sarah Carter) and two other male friends, has a premonition of a horrific freeway pile-up while still on the on-ramp. She causes outrage when she blocks traffic, but the signs prove true. The survivors, Eugene (T.C. Carson), Rory (Jonathon 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 offer to help her spot the signs to keep her and the others alive, but the deaths have already begun. A police officer 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.

Cast & Characters

★ 'Kimberly Corman' (A.J. Cook): The visionary in this film. 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 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, but she was caught up in watching a news special on how a teenager "committed suicide" (this is Tod's death in the first ''Final Destination''). Kimberly cheats death and survives the movie. In an alternate subway scene of ''Final Destination 3'', a newspaper flies by, showing a front page news article saying that she and Officer Burke both were killed by an industrial wood chipper at the Build-it Depot.

★ 'Clear Rivers' (Ali Larter): Returning in this sequel, Clear comes out of her safe self-imprisonment and helps the new set of survivors, using her knowledge and experiences from the first film. She is the last survivor of Flight 180. She eventually dies from an explosion in the hospital while looking for Eugene.

★ 'Officer Thomas Burke' (Michael Landes): 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 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 would have been the first to die in the pile-up. Burke manages to defeat death and lives.

★ 'Rory Peters' (Jonathan Cherry): A drug addict who serves as the film's comic relief. He is likable, but a bit immature. He would have died in a theatre in Paris that collapsed, but he was too freaked out to attend when a guy was hit by a falling sign (this is Carter's death in the first ''Final Destination''). Rory dies when he is sliced by barbed wire that was released from a fence by an explosion.

★ 'Kat Jennings' (Keegan Connor Tracy): A very selfish and direct woman who tends to complain often. She would have died at a bed and breakfast in Pennsylvania when a gas leak suffocated all the guests, but she was unable to go when the bus she was on "splattered some girl on the street" (Terry's death in the first ''Final Destination''). She is a survivor of the pile-up. A sharp PVC pipe goes through her seat in another car accident after the pile-up. It misses her the first time around. 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.

★ 'Nora Carpenter' (Lynda Boyd): She is the oldest and most skeptical of the pile-up survivors, but she is a loving and caring mother to Tim. Nora is a widow and mentions this shortly before her death. After Tim dies, she is very depressed, not caring if she is next until her fate finally arrives. Nora dies when she gets her head stuck in the doors of an elevator and is decapitated.

★ 'Timothy "Tim" Carpenter' (James Kirk): The youngest of the survivors (15 years old), he and his mother Nora are seen as having an ideal mother-son relationship. They may not have any link to the Flight 180 survivors and may have always been intended to die in the pile-up, regardless of the fate of the others. He dies when a heavy sheet of glass is accidentally dropped on him from above.

★ 'Evan Lewis' (David Paetkau): An impatient man who wins the lottery on the day of the crash. After the crash, he goes on a shopping spree before being the first (not including Shaina, Dano, and Frankie) to die. He dies while escaping from a fire in his apartment, when his head is impaled by a fire escape ladder.

★ 'Isabella Hudson' (Justina Machado): A pregnant woman who was on the highway during the pile-up. The survivors falsely believe that Isabella having a baby (a new life) would remove them from Death's list. It isn't until later that Kimberly realizes that Isabella was not destined to die in the pile-up, thus her baby's birth would not save them.

★ 'Shaina Gordon' (Sarah Carter): A friend of Kimberly's, who dies minutes after the pile-up.

★ 'Dano Royale' (Alex Rae): A friend of Kimberly's, who dies minutes after the pile-up.

★ 'Frankie Arnold' (Shaun Sipos): A friend of Kimberly's, who dies minutes after the pile-up.

★ 'Mr. Corman' (Andrew Airlie): Kimberly's father. He is constantly worrying over her safety after his wife's death.

★ 'William Bludworth' (Tony Todd): The eccentric 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.

★ 'Eugene Dix' (T.C. Carson): A teacher who would have died at a school when a kid brought a knife and stabbed the substitute teacher who was replacing him (Ms. Lewton got the job, but died before she started). He was a survivor of the pile-up. He dies with Clear in the explosion while he is being treated in the hospital.

Alex Browning & 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 after the events in Paris, she and Alex skipped 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.
When the decision was made in pre-production to kill off either Clear or Alex, Alex was chosen, as females seem to drive horror movies better than males. The fact that two female lead characters would be present in this movie compelled Ali Larter to resume her role as Clear Rivers.

Deaths

Original Design

Death's original design in the pile-up was as follows: Thomas, Eugene, Rory, Kat, Nora, Tim, Evan, Kimberly (and friends: Shaina, Dano, and Frankie).

Actual Deaths

Due to Kimberley's intervention to stop all 11 people (including herself) being involved in the pile-up, Death's design started to work backwards: Kimberly (and friends), Evan, Tim, Nora, Kat, Rory, Eugene and then Thomas. The reason for this was that since most of the characters cheated death once due to the survivors of the first film, Death is attempting to eliminate those who were originally meant to die in the pile-up first (Evan, Nora, Tim, Shaina, Frankie, and Dano) before they could influence more people through their actions. Because of intervention (and the arrival of Clear from the first film), the order of death was changed as follows: Shaina, Frankie, Dano, Evan, Tim, Nora, Kat, Rory, Eugene, Clear, Kimberly, and Thomas Burke.

★ 'Shaina, Dano, Frankie': Death by incineration:
Minutes after the terrible pile-up, Kimberly fails to notice another truck (carrying cars) heading toward her car that is at the exit to the highway. Officer Burke sees this and successfully pulls Kim out of the way. However, the truck still hits Kimberly's SUV, with her friends still inside. The truck catches fire, and they all die instantly. This truck is actually the truck that crashes into Kimberly's SUV in her premonition of the highway pile-up, killing both her and her friends.
'Original Deaths': The last to die in the pileup, while avoiding logs and the carnage on the road, Kimberly swerves to avoid a log, striking it with just the back wheel. The SUV loses control and flips several times before landing on its side against a distant log. Dazed and unable to move, Kimberly sees a large truck break through the fiery havoc and come careening toward them, she screams as the truck hits them, but then wakes up from the premonition.
''Clues''

★ The song 'Highway to Hell' comes onto Kimberly's radio, hinting at the pileup.

★ High school kids are chanting 'Pileup!' in a passing school bus which happens to have a banner saying 'Demolish the Mustangs! Smoke their butts!' (Rory has a Mustang).

★ A child has a model of the red SUV and bashing it with a model of the truck that actually crushes into their vehicle.

★ Kimberly's dad phones and warns them to stop because of fluid leakage, but her friends persuade her not to do so.

★ 'Evan Lewis': Death by impalement:
Before being impaled through the eye by a falling fire-escape ladder, he tries to escape the fire in his apartment. When he is standing on the ground, free of the ladder, he slips and falls on the spoiled pasta he threw out the window earlier, which leads him to his fate. In the original premonition he is burning alive when he is hit by the truck. He escapes a fiery death again when he escapes his apartment fire, but ironically, his remains are cremated by the mortician.
'Original Death': Seventh to die in the pileup, Evan speeds around the crashing logs, losing control of his Firebird as he drops to the shoulder of the road. Looking up, he sees a tanker truck in front of him and ducks, but his car clips the fuel tank, and it bursts, causing a fiery explosion. His car jams underneath the truck, and he climbs partially out of the wreckage, his entire body on fire. Unable to escape, he meets his end as another truck crashes into the tanker.
''Clues''

★ As the opening credits roll, the camera comes over a picture of Kimberly posing with her friend, Shaina, magnified by a magnifying glass. A tip of a pen is pointing directly at her friend's right eye, foreshadowing Evan's death.

★ When Evan arrives in his apartment hall he steps on a doll's head, which is what happens to him.

★ The doll that Evan steps on has its right eye missing.

★ Evan is carrying a box labeled 'iMac' as he enters the apartment - another 'eye' reference.

★ The fridge magnets spell 'EYE' after one falls off.

★ In the pile-up, he is driving a "Firebird", and is intended to be consumed by fire.

★ 'Tim Carpenter': Death by crushing:
Tim is in the dentist's operating chair with his mouth propped open when a plastic fish from a mobile falls into his mouth. After narrowly escaping suffocation, he is being lulled into a false sense of security. Outside, Tim runs toward a flock of pigeons after misunderstanding Kimberly's warning. The startled pigeons fly up at the construction worker, who accidentally flips the switch to drop the pane of glass the crane was carrying, and it drops and crushes Tim. Just before Tim is almost suffocated by a plastic fish falling into his mouth, the camera travels past a fish tank. A fish is seen laying on top of a tube, referring to the near-suffocation.
'Original Death': Sixth to die in the pileup, Tim dies perhaps a millisecond after his mother, Nora, when their car, striking the log headlong, explodes.
''Clues''

★ In a shot of a fish tank, a fish is sucked onto a tube, mimicking Tim's near suffocation.

★ The night before, Nora tells Tim he has to go to the dentist tomorrow. She then turns the light off and it looks like a skull is shadowed on his face.

★ Before Tim's death, Kimberly "sees" a flock of pigeons, which aren't actually there. Similarly, in the first film, Alex sees images of a bus and a train, hinting at Terry's and Billy's deaths.

★ Pigeons slam against the windows of the dentist's exam room and one actually smashes its way through, foreshadowing the birds' involvement in Tim's death.

★ The dentist says to Tim, "Your mom has told me you've been under some pain recently." This is a reference to the pane of glass that crushes Tim.

★ Through the window, we can see a pane of glass being moved on a crane. This is likely the one that crushes Tim.

★ 'Nora Carpenter': Death by decapitation:
Filled with grief over her son's death, she leaves her apartment to plan her son's funeral. Knowing she is next, Eugene accompanies her into the elevator. A man carrying a selection of prosthetic limbs, some of which have hooks, is also in the elevator. Meanwhile, Rory is putting away bungee cords, but a bowling ball rolls and knocks a selection of items over. The resulting mess forms a shadow of a "man with hooks." Calling Nora, Burke warns her of the "man with hooks," and Nora drops her phone in shock. Her hair is caught in one of the hooks as she flails and she tries to get out of the elevator. The doors close after this, her hair is jerked back, and she slips. The malfunctioning door sensors do not respond to the pressure, and the door closes on her neck. Kat and Clear, who were presumably warned, come rushing to the scene. However, the elevator has moved too far up to try to save her; the ceiling connects with her neck and eventually decapitates her. Eugene is terrified and traumatized by her death and attempts to shoot himself with Burke's gun, but it misfires all six times despite the fact that all the gun's chambers were loaded. Interestingly, a similar death has occurred in real life; on August 16, 2003, 35 year-old Dr. Hitoshi Nikaidoh, was decapitated in an elevator accident at Christus St. Joseph Hospital in Houston Texas ^[2]
'Original Death': Fifth to die in the pileup, Nora swerves through the wreckage, trying to avoid the logs. Tim drops a water bottle he was carrying as he cries for her to stop, the water bottle falls under the break pedal, jamming it, and Nora screams as the car strikes a log headlong, causing it to explode.
''Clues''

★ The "hookman" shadow in Officer Burke's apartment hint at Nora's death.

★ Before she leaves, Nora claims "I have a funeral to plan."

★ 'Kat Jennings:' Death by impalement, head trauma:
After Nora's death, the group (now including Clear) is anxious to get to the hospital to see Isabella have her baby. On the way there, the survivors cross paths with Isabella (in labor), causing them to swerve, blow a tire, ram into a pick-up truck carrying PVC piping, and ultimately crash onto a field. Kat becomes trapped by a wooden post, while the sharp PVC poles fly out of the pickup, and one pierces the back of Kat's seat, exiting just inches from the back of her head. A fireman tries tearing her doors with the jaws of life; Kat complains about the noise and smokes. A little peeved, the fireman thrusts it in again; the vehicle's airbag modules respond according, and the airbags deploy. The driver's airbag rapidly inflates forces her head backward into the pipe. (It could be said that because an airbag is supposed to save life, since Kat is on Death's list, it has the opposite effect.)
'Original Death': Kat would have been fourth to die in the pileup. She attempts to avoid a log on the road, but her SUV strikes it head on and flips, crushing her within the cab.
''Clues''

★ The place where Kat dies is by a mile marker reading 180 (the flight number of the exploding plane in the first film).

★ Moments after Rory saves Brian (the boy who attempted to help Kat out the car) from being hit by a car, Rory tells him to use his head.

★ 'Rory Peters/Cunningham:' Death by dismemberment:
As news vans arrive to film the carnage after Kat's death, the fuel tank of one of the vans is pierced by some rocks. The seeping fuel trails down a drainage pipe. Meanwhile, Kat's cigarette drops from her dead hand, wanders in the wind, and lights the trail of fuel. The flame travels back to the source and the van explodes. The explosion causes a barbed wire fence to go flying. The wires of the fence slice cleanly through Rory's body in several places, killing him instantly. His body remains standing for a few seconds, his face frozen in surprise, and he looks downwards before falling into a dismembered heap. Moments before his death, he asks Kimberly if his death will hurt. She says she doesn't know. He gives her his house keys and asks her that if he dies, would she go to his house and throw away his drugs and porn and "anything that's gonna break my mom's heart."
'Original Death': Third to die in the pileup, Rory swerved to avoid the log that had killed Officer Burke, causing him to flip sideways several times before landing upright. His relief was short-lived, however, as he turns to look out his window just as a truck collides with his car, causing it to explode.
''Clues''

★ Like Kat, Rory dies at the 180-mile mark.

★ 'Eugene Dix and Clear Rivers:' Death by incineration:
Eugene is in his hospital bed, hooked up to an oxygen machine. He listens to the news and learns of Kat's death, and he now knows that it's his turn to die next. He watches helplessly as his oxygen machine fails but, luckily for him, the back-up battery kicks in. The survivors have been relying on the hope that Isabella having her baby would save them from Death's list, as "new life defeats death." However, they are mistaken, as Isabella was never meant to die in the pile-up, so Isabella and her baby can't save them. Kimberly has another vision which confirms this. Clear then leaves the group to search for Eugene. Lulled into a false sense of security, Clear opens Eugene's door, which hits a wire and jerks the plug from an outlet, creating a spark, which explodes the escaped oxygen, killing them both instantly. Clear's charred body is blown backwards and lands in front of Kimberly. Right before Clear's death, it almost looks as if there is a small smile on her face. Eugene previously attempted to take his own life with Burke's pistol, but Death intervened and prevented him from dying by having every bullet misfire (it was ''not yet'' his turn to die).
'Original Deaths': Second to die in the pileup, Eugene swerved his motorcycle to avoid a log, lost control and spun off of his motorcycle. He skids along the ground, his motorcycle trailing him, and collides with a log that had come to a standstill on the highway. He is subsequently crushed when his motorcycle catches up to him. Clear Rivers was not slated to die in the pileup, rather she was set to die a year earlier on Flight 180 in the first film. She dies in the same way she probably would have died on the plane.
''Clues''

★ Earlier in the film, the mortician says Clear has such a 'fire' in her.

★ 'Officer Thomas Burke:' Death by obliteration:
'Original Death': Officer Burke would have been the first to die in the pileup. Driving behind a log truck, he notices something strange about the chains holding the logs on. His coffee drops into his lap, distracting him. At that moment, the chains break, and the logs come loose. Burke looks up just in time to see a log crash through his windshield. The next thing we see is the log exiting through the back windshield, spilling blood on the highway. Burke does not actually die, being saved by Kimberly's death and subsequent revival.

★ 'Brian Gibbons:' Death by incineration:
Months later, Kimberly, her father, and Thomas Burke join the family who own the property where Kat and Rory died for an outdoor barbecue. Brian, who is serving everyone, goes to get some more food, but mentions his close call he had with a news van, and walks over to the barbecue grill. As Brian's dad mentions how Rory saved Brian from being struck by the news van, Kimberly and Thomas look at each other, realizing Brian is now marked. At that moment, the barbecue grill blows up in the background, killing Brian. His charred, dismembered arm lands in front of his mother, who screams. The credits roll.
'Original Death': Running to help Kat and the others after they crashed at the 180-mile mark, Brian ran into the path of an oncoming news van, Rory pulled him out of the way just in the nick of time, saving his life, and adding him to death's list.

★ 'Kimberly Corman:' death by dismemberment
In one of the alternate scenes on the ''Final Destination 3'' DVD, a newspaper article is seen blowing by. It reads that Kimberly and Officer Burke coincidentally met up at a hardware store after the events of the movie, and a runaway Camaro smashed into the hardware store. Both Kimberly and Officer Burke hid in the back of the store, but Kimberly's jacket became caught in a wood chipper, eventually pulling her in. However, this creates a plot hole, as at the end of second film, Kimberly's death and subsequently revival erased Death's list, so she and Officer Burke were no longer marked for death. But because it was not a "new life", but rather an "old life returning," it may not have counted. There is debate over whether this information should be considered canon, as it is only revealed in an alternate scene.

★ 'Officer Burke:' death by dismemberment. After Kimberly is pulled in to the wood chipper, Officer Burke attempted to reportedly attempted to save her, but fell into it after her. However, Officer Burke in line to die ''before'' Kimberly, so some argue he should have been the one to be pulled into the wood chipper first. It is, however, ironic that their pileup deaths were caused by logs and their possible deaths here were caused by a wood chipper.

Survivors

These deaths do not occur in a canon, theater-release of any of the films, but are referenced in a special feature on ''Final Destination 3's DVD. The "Choose Their Fates" feature reveals alternate versions of several key scenes in the movie, showcasing what might have been -- but wasn't. Since the revelation of the two following deaths was made in the alternate version of one of these scenes, there is debate over how seriously non-canon deaths should be considered. Since the rest of the alternate scenes feature actions that obviously cannot be canon in the Final Destination universe, it is up for debate whether or not Kimberly and Officer Burke ended up alive and well, or bits of meat in a hardware store parking lot. Further, director James Wong states on the DVD commentary that much of the "Choose Their Fates" footage resulted from scenes he didn't want to include in the actual film (such as Lewis Romero's original surprise death).

Rating

In the U.S., the film was rated R for strong violence/gruesome accidents, language, drug content, and some nudity. This movie never received an NC-17 rating by the MPAA. Ratings in other countries:

★ Argentina: 1390

★ Australia: MA (Not Suitable For People Under 15.)

★ Denmark: 1530

★ Finland: K-'18'

★ France: -12

★ Germany: 16

★ Hong Kong: IIB (some content is unsuitable for '...' young persons; parental guidance suggested)

★ Iceland: 16

★ Ireland: 18

★ Japan: R-15

★ Malaysia: '18'SG

★ Netherlands: original - 12

★ Netherlands: DVD - 16

★ New Zealand: R'16'

★ Norway: 15

★ Peru: 14

★ Philippines: PG-13

★ Singapore: PG (Original Rating) / NC-16 (Re-rating) / M-18 (Confirmed Rating)

★ South Korea: 18

★ Spain: 13

★ Sweden: 15

★ Switzerland: 16 (canton of Geneva)

★ Switzerland: 16 (canton of Vaud)

★ Switzerland: 16 (canton of Grisons)

★ U.K.: 15

References

1.
2. Elevator Decapitation - Snopes Urban Legends Reference

External links

★ Official site

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