WARNING: Contains mild spoilers!
Rating: * * out of * * * *
Rated: R for strong violence/gore, language, and sexuality.
Running Time: 100 minutes
Starring: Jennifer Morrison, Joseph Laurence, Matthew Davis, Hal Bochner, Anson Mount, Eva Mendez, Jessica Cauffiel, Anthony Anderson, Loretta Devine, Michael Bacall.
Directed by: John Ottman
Out of all the rip-offs of Wes Craven's instant 1996 classic "Scream" and including it's sequels, only two really stood out as being original. The first was 1997's "I Know What You Did Last Summer" which was followed by a lame sequel, and the second is 1998's "Urban Legend" which went on to gross more than $38 million dollars, a nice sum for a low-budget horror film. Of course the ending left it open for a sequel, but one would hope they wouldn't make one. Surprise...they did anyway, and this time it has nothing to do with the original, well it does, but it doesn't.
Amy Mayfield is a student at the Alpine University, majoring in film. She worked on a few of somebody elses, but her main goal is to make her own movie. After hearing a story about a university, where the students were murdered based on Urban Legends, she herself decides to make a movie called what else? Urban Legends. Everything goes well, her film starts production, but when she finds a reel of film she didn't make, showing a murder, Amy starts to suspect something isn't right. Once the people working on her production start to get killed in the style of urban legends, Amy knows there is a killer after her, and she has to try to stop him before he gets to her.
Of course there is the usual refereces to urban legends, and the plot developments of the story. Wait...we're missing something, oh yeah character development duh! I should have known that, but wait where is it at? Oh yeah there is none! Thats the biggest flaw of the entire movie, is the lack of character development. When the movie first starts, we go into a comedic opening sequence, and are introduced to the characters, of course we know who they are as in names, and we know what they do, but we don't know anything about them.
In her first starring role, Jennifer Morrison, is great as the film student Amy. She brings out the most she can of her character, and does a credible job of playing her. Matthew Davis is in dual roles, as the bland Travis/Trevor, and doesn't really add much to the film, except a gratitous sex scene. Joey Lawrence is pointless in his role, but adds much to the comic relief. The two or actually three biggest standouts of the movie is the George Lucas fan duo, Michael Bacall and Anthony Anderson are extremely funny, and add much to the film, but not much to the story. Finally Loretta Devine is the standout of the movie, and should get much credit to saving this movie from being a bust.
The direction by John Ottman is very stylish, and since he is an editor and composer, he of course, edited and composed this movie. Both are very nice, and the score is a standout, when this dvd comes out, I would like to see a isolated score, just to hear this, because it adds much to the tight atmosphere. The movie itself, is never scary, excluding one scene that has to do with the tub, ice and kidney. This was very gruesome and quite intense. John Ottman did a good job on the techinal well-making, that he forgot to add more excitement and suspense.
Overall the movie is entertaining throughout, and merits at least one watch. The killer is fun to guess, and I was surprised at who it was, although the motive is laughable. At the end, they change the slasher ending into something different, and the end of the movie before the credits role, I thought was extremely funny and very clever. The standout scene of the movie is the end, and at the end of the movie, I turned to my friend and said "That was ok, nothing special, but nothing bad". It deserves one watch, if not two. It really has nothing to do with the original, and really is pointless, but for what it's worth it isn't that bad.
Reviewed by Brandon Herring 9/23/00
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