Urban Legends: Final Cut

Apparently, the original Urban Legend -- a low-rent Kevin Williamson knock-off whose only redeeming value was a semidecent cast -- was one of Sony's five biggest grossers of 1998. Thus, a sequel was inevitable, although surviving characters Alicia Witt and Jared Leto apparently realized it was in the best interest of their careers not to re-sign. (Of the original film's cast, Rebecca Gayheart makes a small cameo, and Loretta Devine reprises her role as a Pam Grier-worshipping security guard.) Unsurprisingly, the sequel lifts its entire storyline from the Scream sequels: A movie is being made about the events depicted in the first film (a serial killer who patterns his or her murders on urban legends), when, lo and behold, a real killer begins offing the cast. Set at the fictional Alpine University, which is apparently the nation's smallest, most prestigious, and best-funded film school, Final Cut evinces no evidence that its makers ever actually attended film school. Surely they'd know that a slasher movie would have no chance of being approved as a senior thesis film? Or that there's a difference between Super-8 and Hi-8? Or, most importantly, that ripping off, er, "paying homage" to an endless barrage of influences from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to Child's Play 3 makes your film extraordinarily banal? And that's even before we get into the plot, which features endless "is it a movie, or is it real?" fake-outs, the classic "it was just a dream" fake-out, a surprise identical twin, and a killer whose identity is impossible to guess because the motive, when finally revealed, is one that hasn't even been hinted at and makes no sense. At least the killer this time around has ditched the hooded anorak of its predecessor (Oh, my God! They got killed by Kenny! You bastards!), and replaced it with a fencing mask and robe seemingly lifted from Disney's The Black Hole.