Movie Review: Jeepers Creepers 2 (2003)

Synopsis: Shortly after the events of the first movie, the Creeper, on its final day of being able to eat, stalks a school bus full of basketball players returning from a state championship. When the adults are quickly killed, the kids must figure out how to stay alive.

Who's in it? The movie stars Jonathan Breck, Ray Wise, Nicki Aycox, Eric Nenninger and Lena Cardwell.

Review: My wife and I saw this movie sequel not long after it first came out and weren't huge fans. However, our youngest daughter recently saw and enjoyed the original and wanted to see this film as well, so we re-watched it last night.

I normally try to keep an open mind when re-watching a film I haven't seen in a while, just in case my first impression wasn't as bad as I remember. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case with this movie. It might have been even worse than I remembered.

I think the biggest problem with this film is there are just too many characters and nobody that really stands out as the movie's hero. The group of kids on the bus spent so much time arguing, it was hard to like any of them. And the one who had sudden psychic abilities, Minxie (Aycox), just didn't work for me, both because there is no explanation about why she is the one who is having those visions and because she shared an awful lot of exposition that wasn't shared to her, at least not on screen.

Probably the closest thing this film had to a hero was Jack Taggert, Sr. (Wise), and had he been the focus of the movie, it might have been slightly better. However, since the kids got most of the screen time, his character never had a chance to develop.

The other thing my wife and I STILL don't like about the movie is there are a lot of things that don't add up. For example, it's supposed to take place in the spring, when corn would just be getting planted, but there are fields of corn that are ready to be harvested (my daughter caught that as well). Plus, as my wife pointed out, wouldn't a basketball team competing in a state championship have a caravan of vehicles from parents and other students, not just a single school bus? Did the school not give them any support at all?

Final Opinion: I think Brecken did an awesome job as the Creeper again, but the entire movie failed to capitalize on his performance by just having too much going on and too many uninteresting characters to keep track of. 

My Grade: D