Jennifer Morrison in "Urban Legends: Final Cut."

MOVIE INFORMATION

With 10 as a must-see, Jack gives this film a: Stars: Jennifer Morrison, Hart Bochner, Loretta Devine, and Joseph Lawrence Director: John Ottman Rated: R, with gore, profanity and sex Length: 93 minutes

ROCHESTERCRITIQUE

Having seen this film, how would you rate it? 10 5 9 4 8 3 7 2 6 1

By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(September 22, 2000) -- Urban legends are those typically horrifying tales that large groups of people tend to believe, no matter how improbable. Every generation has 'em, whether it's an incident with Reggie Jackson in a hotel elevator or waking up in a bathtub full of ice with your kidney extracted or the extreme sexual potency of Spanish Fly.

Now we have Urban Legends: Final Cut, the second in a series of stupid slasher flicks trying to exploit that phenomenon.

But all it demonstrates is the silliest, most improbable legend of all: That there's still life in the teen slasher genre.

Face it, the form is as dead as the nubile teen victims who line up to be sliced and diced in such films.

The funny thing is, Urban Legends: Final Cut isn't really about urban legends. It's a stock serial-killer saga, set among film students at a fictional university. Urban legends factor -- only slightly -- into a film-within-the-film.

Amy Mayfield (Jennifer Morrison) is making her senior thesis movie -- a thriller about urban legends. It's an important assignment, because she's competing for the school's Hitchcock Prize, a $15,000 award that includes a Hollywood contract.

Amy's set is plagued with all sorts of problems (actually bloody murders). And the likely killers are among the fellow students who form her competition. (Typical of these movies, though, the actual killer is the least likely candidate.)

Playing the students as various 90210-like clones are Matthew Davis, Eva Mendes, Marco Hofschneider, Anson Mount, and young TV sitcom star Joey Lawrence, who now wants to be known as Joseph Lawrence (probably because he's appearing in such a mature, thoughtful film.)

Hart Bochner co-stars as a film school professor.

Providing the only link to the first Urban Legend is Loretta Devine, as a campus security guard. Her spunky attitude and asides are the film's only worthwhile elements.

Legends and motives aren't the only improbabilities, though. I've never seen a film school with as many elaborate sound stages and movie sets. Each time the movie calls for a setting, it's miraculously ready -- whether it's an elaborate mine shaft, a large sound-stage cemetery, and all sorts of interior rooms. And the equipment they're using is enough to keep a Hollywood studio afloat. (Most students I know are lucky to "borrow" a grocery cart to rig for tracking shots.)

Urban Legends: Final Cut features basic, cut-and-paste direction by John Ottman, who stepped up to director after serving as a an editor and/or composer on The Usual Suspects, Apt Pupil, and Lake Placid.

According to the press notes, the script for Urban Legends: Final Cut was the best of 30 different takes from different combinations of writers.

That's far scarier than anything in the movie.