Gina Matthews, Neal H. Moritz and Richard Luke Rothschild
Screenplay:
Paul Harris Boardman and Scott Derrickson
Music:
John Ottman
Cast:
Amy Mayfield: Jennifer Morrison
Travis: Matthew Davis
Professor Solomon: Hart Bochner
Reese Wilson: Loretta Devine
Vanessa Valdeon: Eva Mendes
Graham Manning: Joey Lawrence
Toby Belcher: Anson Mount
Sandra Petruzz: Jessica Cauffiel
Stan Washington: Anthony Anderson
I haven't seen the first movie, but I doubt that'll make much
difference for a slasher flick like Urban Legends: Final Cut
and you know you're onto a loser with a horror film that relies on gore but
has been given a certificate 15.
There's a killer on the loose (again), at a different university this time.
Whether he did the same in the last film I neither know nor care but the one
here kidnaps students, has a penchant for stealing body parts - so he'd
probably be top of the pile for the doctor's job at Alder Hey Children's
Hospital - and then offs them, although there's a complete lack of
suspense and conviction in the death scenes. In the case of the first murder,
I doubt very much that a broken window pane would suffice as a replacement
for a guillotine.
The cast of unknowns playing film students, led by blonde Jennifer Morrison
as Amy Mayfield, include the obligatory other ditzy blondes, a Spanish lesbian,
an assertive male with an attitude, a guy with designer stubble, a geek and a fat black guy. Of
course all such films must fulfil these roles so we don't get them confused
when its their turn to bite the bullet. Given the film student idea, you can
count on some people pretending to be dead because they know when to use the
ketchup. The only recognisable actor is Hart Bochner as Professor Solomon
as he played Ellis in
Die Hard,
the man who tried to convince Alan Rickman that he was a good friend of Bruce's
and ended up getting shot.
Urban Legends: Final Cut fails because it's all been done before
many times and better. Also, there's too much time spent pissing about and
talking and too few gory murders which is what we've pressed 'play' on the
DVD machine for. Double-bill this with
Cherry Falls
if you want to really suffer.
The film also includes an uncredited cameo from the original movie's
Rebecca Gayheart as a nurse.
Oh, rats.
The film is presented in the original 2.35:1 widescreen ratio and is anamorphic.
It looks decent enough and many of the scenes are in near-darkness so make
sure there's no light on when you watch it otherwise it'll be difficult to see
what's going on.
The average bitrate is 5.90Mb/s, occasionally peaking over 9Mb/s.
Dolby Digital 5.1 is here in English and German. For such a pedestrian flick
you know exactly when the score will get erratic as needs be.
The first extra is a trailer and takes the film's only cut, for a second,
because the BBFC won't allow simulated oral sex in a 15-cert trailer and
didn't want to pass an 18-cert trailer for a 15-cert film. (It's listed under
"Urban Legend: Final Cut", without the 's' that the title should hold.)
There's also a five-minute Gag Reel of outtakes, seven brief Deleted
Scenes, each with optional director's commentary, Talent Profiles
for the director and four of the main stars, a feature-length Director's
Commentary track and a 3½-minute Making-of Featurette which is
more like an extended trailer containing soundbites from the cast and a voiceover
from "that man", Don La Fontaine".
The disc contains 28 chapters and subtitles in 17 languages:
English, German, Dutch, Polish, Bulgarian, Czech, Hungarian, Icelandic,
Hindi, Hebrew, Turkish, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Greek and
Arabic.
The menus are static and silent.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
