YMMV / Final Destination 2

• Alas, Poor Scrappy:
  • Even if you don't like Kat, you can't help but feeling sorry when she dies some moments after showing empathy for her companions of misfortune, and in one of the stupidest ways to die as well. At least it was instantaneous...
  • During the car ride, Rory quietly remarks that he hopes Kat dies next. But when Kat is badly hurt in the car crash, Rory expresses concern for her and is clearly shaken when Kat dies. He also wants Kimberley to go to his apartment and hide "anything that'll break his mother's heart" and saves Brian from getting run over only for both of them to die horribly.
• Common Knowledge: A lot of discussion of Kat and Evan as Jerkass characters seems to draw on a few isolated lines of dialogue that don't seem hold true for all of their scenes.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Tim says to his mom before visiting his dentist - "if they give me the gas and I wake up with my pants unbuttoned, we're not paying." Let's hope this line wasn't in the script when he was written to be even younger!
• Even Better Sequel: With an improved script, diverse characters from different backgrounds (as opposed to just high schoolers) and introducing new ways to try and cheat death - as well as some interesting twists - there's a large portion of the fan base that thinks this is the best film in the series. Ironically it's the lowest grossing of the five.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content:
  • In the original script, Alex is still alive and accompanying Clear. Several fans wish that there'd been a scene of the two visionaries interacting, given how nothing like that ever happens later in the series.
  • In earlier versions of the script, Clear lives and is set up to be a guide for future inexperienced visionaries and survivors in later films, something that could have tied the stories together more and reduced the amount of Too Bleak, Stopped Caring sentiment brought on by how the franchise adapts an "Everybody Dies" Ending path.
• He's Just Hiding: Kimberly and Thomas. Some people just outright refuse to acknowledge the bonus feature mentioning their deaths on the Final Destination 3 DVD, even though Word of God states that it can be canon. The many continuity errors in the bonus feature didn't help (misnaming Brian's father, getting years wrong, et cetera).
• Harsher in Hindsight: Nora Carpenter's decapitation by a malfunctioning elevator is frighteningly similar to the real-life death of Houston surgical resident Hitoshi Nikaidoh, which occured just eight months after the film's release.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Eugene from this film is played by one Terrence C. Carson. In this film, Eugene is a victim of Death and he very much can't fight fate. T.C. Carson would then go on to voice Kratos five years after this film's release, whose list of accolades includes defying fate and killing Thanatos, the God of Death. In addition, while Eugene gets Killed Off for Real in the film, Kratos would come back from the dead every single time he's killed.
  • Kat cheats death and later dies for real. Her actress Keegan Connor Tracy would become infamous in Once Upon a Time for playing a character that seems to get killed off, only to be saved again.
• Hollywood Homely:
  • Kimberly is meant to be the more modest, down-to-earth character next to a more outgoing and vampy Sheena. A.J. Cook's blonde hair is dyed brown and she's dressed in modest coats and cardigans.
  • Jonathan Cherry is actually pretty good looking outside of the baggy clothes and messy hair he's put in to play the slobby Rory.
• Memetic Mutation: In Real Life, cars frequently avoid tailing behind log trucks, presumably because they've seen this movie.
• Narm: The massive vehicle pileup scene. The fact that practically every single vehicle explodes, regardless of whether it makes sense or not, doesn't help. At certain points, it gets so over the top that it seems like something out of South Park.
• Narm Charm: That said, despite the Every Car Is a Pinto trope? Pileups can be just as devastating, lethal and messy in real life.
• Paranoia Fuel: Anyone with a fear of the dentist will likely squirm when Tim makes a visit.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Kimberly is Jennifer Jareau.
  • Kim's friend Shaina is played by Margaret.
  • Eugene ought to be a master at taking on fate — he's also known as Kratos.
  • Isabella is Penelope Alvarez.
  • Brian is Mickey Milkovich.
  • Kat is The Blue Fairy.
• Rewatch Bonus:
  • The first complicated death trap contains too many references to eyes to count, for example, in the hallway outside Evan's apartment, you see a baby doll missing its left eye and a toy ambulance right next to it. There's also the magnets on his fridge. When one of them falls into his box of Chinese takeout, they spell the word "eye".
  • If you watch the opening pileup a second time, you'll notice that you never actually see Isabella's van crashing.
  • Also not immediately apparent in the premonition sequence is the fact that the so-called "truck from hell" toward the end has no driver.
• Signature Scene: The pileup is the most famous opening disaster in the whole franchise.
• Special Effect Failure: During the premonition when we see the protagonist's vehicle rolling, the passengers are very obviously dummies. One can also see the devices used to flip it (and the other vehicles) over. Blatant dummies were also used when Eugene gets crushed by his bike and a log. If you pause immediately before Tim is crushed by the pane of glass you can see that the dummy being used has disproportionately long arms.
• The Woobie:
  • Poor Nora, who has already lost her husband before the film starts and loses her only son shortly after horrifically in front of her eyes. We get to see her dealing with the traumatic aftermath of Tim's death just long enough before she follows him.
  • Kimberly has to deal with a lot too. She lost her mom in a carjacking the year before, loses three of her friends in the disaster, and it's clear she feels something for every death in this film. Especially considering Tim's death which was caused by her trying to warn them.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: It's revealed that Alex Browning died offscreen between movies in an anticlimactic way. Though there was no reconciling the inability to get Devon Sawa back for the sequel, his popularity as a final boy have left most fans preferring him to have either simply stayed in hiding, or to at least have gotten a more memorable death, with some hoping that his death is retconned in the future.
• Too Dumb to Live: Burke leaves a piping hot uncovered coffee cup just sitting on the dash while driving in the premonition.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: The filmmakers were probably expecting you to laugh at the end when Brian gets blown up by the barbecue. This scene will seem a lot less funny when you consider that 1. Brian was an innocent bystander with his whole life ahead of him who had nothing to do with Death’s list at first, who’s only mistake was being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and 2. He died in front of all his family and friends, and probably left his parents deeply traumatized for the rest of their lives.

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