The title URBAN LEGENDS: FINAL CUT sounds like an escalation, because the legend has suddenly become plural, but I seem to remember this sequel coming out with a whimper. I thought I remembered respecting it a little more than others at the time, but in my review back then I seem to have thought it was pretty bad.
It starts on an airplane during a storm, which seems crazy enough for the series that you can probly guess it’s the ol’ “actually we’re watching a movie-within-a-movie” cold open fake out. The reveal is kind of cool, though: suddenly the pilot sees a Tom-Cruise-looking asshole in sunglasses staring into the cockpit from the outside – he’s the director of this student film (filmed on a set from PUSHING TIN). In an even more aggressive “you kids liked SCREAM, right? Check this out!” move than the first URBAN LEGEND, the story has moved to Alpine University Film School, where aspiring directors are in a cutthroat competition to win “the prestigious Hitchcock Award,” which they all talk about it like it’s a guaranteed Hollywood career because it has been a “springboard” for successful filmmakers in the past. (read the rest of this shit…)
Earlier this month when I reviewed 
In 1995, those of you who were living in the free world first discovered a talented young group of filmmakers who seemed to come out of nowhere with the phenomenally popular crime movie The Usual Suspects. I don’t think anybody thought the movie was profound, but it was a fun novelty, obviously made by a couple of film school whiz kids. If something with this much attention to detail and audience manipulation is their first movie (well, not counting the god awful Public Access, which at the time had only played film festivals) – what will they be doing, say, five years from now?
