On the heels of the moderately successful "Final Destination," in which several teens who initially cheat death suffer various forms of violent demise, comes this surprisingly entertaining sequel, which takes the premise of the original a few steps further, while providing moviegoers with another plethora of creatively gruesome scenes of death and destruction. The movie is given the Infinifilm treatment by New Line.

The film opens with the mother of all on-screen car accidents, which is foreseen by a young girl named Kim (A.J. Cook). Because of her precognition, she saves the lives of several people who would have perished in the crash. As it turns out, this does not bode well with Death, who has an agenda; these survivors are all somewhat connected with those who died in the first film, and this crash was intended to set things straight. Meanwhile, Clear Rivers (Ali Carter), the lone survivor from the first film, has committed herself to the security of an asylum, still convinced that Death is out to claim her. At the behest of Kim, she reluctantly agrees to help the current would-be victims before Death claims them through violent "accidents." Attempts to link the events of this movie with those in the first are shaky at best...all the gobbledygook about "Death's design" borders on "Star Trek"-type psychobabble. Forget all that. It's best to simply sit back and enjoy the creatively violent death scenes, which are elaborately orchestrated, and sometimes almost comedic. In fact, the overall tone of the whole picture is a bit lighter than in the first. I don't know if that's by design or not; perhaps the producers realized the holes in their original concept are big enough to drive a tank through anyway, and no serious exposition in a second story was gonna plug 'em. "Final Destination 2," after its brief set-up, wisely focuses on the violent action, which is here in abundance; the aforementioned freeway accident is one of the more spectacular (and bloody) action set-pieces I've seen in quite awhile. Another terrificly ironic scene involves a would-be victim (who's just won the lottery) trying to escape his burning apartment; you know he's about to die, but the film cleverly has you guessing just how it might happen. That happens a lot in this film; you know death is coming...but from where? The performances are uniformly better than in the original; Cook makes a far more interesting protagonist than Devon Sawa in "FD1" (he was pretty bland, and always looked like he was about to start drooling); Tony Todd, another holdover from "FD1", makes another morbidly amusing cameo appearance. Of course, the movie isn't without its problems. Like the first film, the story doesn't bare much scrutiny. And while the concept of an unseen, benevolent killer is initially interesting, the picture does suffer a bit because there are no onscreen villains to root against (or root for, depending on how sick you are). Still, the movie offers a lot of icky fun.

As with other movies in New Line's Infinifilm series, the transfer of this film is outstanding...much better looking than the picture of the first film (which wasn't bad either). There are no blemishes of any kind present, and the color tones are very accurate and sharp. There's also a pan and scan version available on the disc. The soundtrack is rendered in both Dolby 5.1 and DTS 6.1; both tracks are outstanding in their clarity, with no hisses or distortion of any kind. However, no alternate language tracks are included.

There are extras abound on this disc. Though some are fairly useless, there are enough interesting features to please fans of the film series. Included are three documentaries, though I hesitate to call "The Terror Gauge" a true documentary. It features some psychiatrist who hooks up several teens and gauges their fear while watching "FD2"; of course, their reactions are extreme, like they're watching "The Exorcist" for the first time ("FD2" is entertaining, but scary it's not). Another documentary, "Cheating Death," features various interviews with people who've been near death, caught a glimpse of the other side, then returned to tell about it; it has nothing to do with the movie, and I guess its interest depends on what you believe. The third documentary, "Bits & Pieces," is a 30 minute feature, which briefly chronicles the history of Grand Guignol entertainment before focusing on the elaborate visual effects of "FD2." Other features include two music videos, trailers for both "FD" films, and a fun little "choose your fate" game, in which the viewer selects a card to find out what fate awaits them. The audio commentary, featuring director David Ellis, producer Craig Perry and screenwriters Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber, is lively and entertaining; their enthusiasm for this project is obvious, and they offer lots of interesting details and anecdotes. Then, of course, there are the Infinifilm features, like the Fact Track, a feature which allows you to watch the film while various facts and details periodically pop-up on the screen, or the feature which allows you, during the film, to access snippets of screen tests or related, behind-the-scenes details, many of which are featured in "Bits & Pieces." Useless trivia: Director David Ellis worked on both "The Matrix Reloaded" and "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" as a second unit director.

"Final Destination 2" is one of those rare sequels which is better than the original. Of course, being that "FD1" wasn't all that great, perhaps that's faint praise, but this movie is undeniably fun (as long as you don't think about it too much afterwards), and New Line has done a masterful job transferring this chiller to disc.