Since I didn't like the original, I popped in the sequel with my typical optimism. See, whenever I happen to dislike a movie with a cult following, I go to the sequel and remake thinking "It'd be funny if I wound up liking the hated and evil sequel/remake more than the original." Why? Just because many people dislike sequels and remakes on principle alone. Well, as it turns out
I didn't like the sequel (or the remake) either.
The Hitcher 2 is the cinematic equivalent to the equation (X * 0 = 0). Some ideas just don't lend themselves to sequels. The idea of a God-like Hitchhiker with the mystical power of popping up whenever and wherever the plot needs (sorry, *demands*) him to make the protagonist's life hell? Yeah, no matter how you cut that it's an obedient repeat of the first one. At best the sequel can bring superficial changes that, in the end, count for nothing. No matter what number X represents (X=5, X=50, X=500, X=50Bajillion), the equation always yields 0.
In the first film the Hitcher needs to materialize in the backseat of a car belonging to a nice family; in the sequel, the Hitcher needs to appear at a farm belonging to a nice old couple. And so on, and so forth.
Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell) returns to the scene of the original crime to face his demons, and joining him this time is Maggie (Kari Wuhrer.) Jim's demons materialize in the form of the new Hitcher (Jake Busey who tries too hard to play a psychopath.) The Hitcher this time around is apparently a former master of ceremonies at a carnival freak show, or maybe even a Nickelodeon game show host on crack. I dunno. All I know is that Busey made me better understand the notion than an actor has to "become" the character because here he clearly just "plays" crazy in the most artificial sense.
Like its predecessor, The Hitcher spends most of the film killing everyone around the protagonist, framing the protagonist, chasing the protagonist, and pushing her to the brink of sanity. The sequel continues the trend of good cinematography (even if it is overly stylized for the sake of over stylization). More than anything I wanted the nicely done effects and neat scenarios to thrill me but I couldn't believe in them enough for that to happen.
No fan of the thrillers watches them to disbelieve. I don't watch Indiana Jones, Die Hard, and the Alien films (among many others) for absolute logic. Hell, I liked Torque, Half Past Dead, and most of Michael Bay's films. And I was keenly aware of this when Maggie flies a plane around the Hitcher's massive 18-wheeler, and the soundtrack kicks into overdrive with intense chase music while the plane just circles and circles and circles. I thought, "Okay, what's the point?" Whooshing by the truck isn't going to do anything even if the music tries with all its might to convince me otherwise. This isn't an honest presentation it's a cowardly act of trying to punch up tension that doesn't exist. It's the score that cried wolf.
And since the movie indulged on a punched up and pointless (thus thrill-less) fly-by sequence, it gave my mind the opportunity to note the plane realistically couldn't threaten the truck without crashing (probability favoring Maggie dying before the Hitcher). Plus since the film wanted to cry wolf, I stopped listening entirely. So much for the film's climax.
Thrillers can ride amazingly thin plots with amazingly thin characters and get away with it. A film has to literally split hairs to cut them too thin, and amazingly many do.
The Hitcher 2 is the cinematic equivalent to the equation (X * 0 = 0). Some ideas just don't lend themselves to sequels. The idea of a God-like Hitchhiker with the mystical power of popping up whenever and wherever the plot needs (sorry, *demands*) him to make the protagonist's life hell? Yeah, no matter how you cut that it's an obedient repeat of the first one. At best the sequel can bring superficial changes that, in the end, count for nothing. No matter what number X represents (X=5, X=50, X=500, X=50Bajillion), the equation always yields 0.
In the first film the Hitcher needs to materialize in the backseat of a car belonging to a nice family; in the sequel, the Hitcher needs to appear at a farm belonging to a nice old couple. And so on, and so forth.
Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell) returns to the scene of the original crime to face his demons, and joining him this time is Maggie (Kari Wuhrer.) Jim's demons materialize in the form of the new Hitcher (Jake Busey who tries too hard to play a psychopath.) The Hitcher this time around is apparently a former master of ceremonies at a carnival freak show, or maybe even a Nickelodeon game show host on crack. I dunno. All I know is that Busey made me better understand the notion than an actor has to "become" the character because here he clearly just "plays" crazy in the most artificial sense.
Like its predecessor, The Hitcher spends most of the film killing everyone around the protagonist, framing the protagonist, chasing the protagonist, and pushing her to the brink of sanity. The sequel continues the trend of good cinematography (even if it is overly stylized for the sake of over stylization). More than anything I wanted the nicely done effects and neat scenarios to thrill me but I couldn't believe in them enough for that to happen.
No fan of the thrillers watches them to disbelieve. I don't watch Indiana Jones, Die Hard, and the Alien films (among many others) for absolute logic. Hell, I liked Torque, Half Past Dead, and most of Michael Bay's films. And I was keenly aware of this when Maggie flies a plane around the Hitcher's massive 18-wheeler, and the soundtrack kicks into overdrive with intense chase music while the plane just circles and circles and circles. I thought, "Okay, what's the point?" Whooshing by the truck isn't going to do anything even if the music tries with all its might to convince me otherwise. This isn't an honest presentation it's a cowardly act of trying to punch up tension that doesn't exist. It's the score that cried wolf.
And since the movie indulged on a punched up and pointless (thus thrill-less) fly-by sequence, it gave my mind the opportunity to note the plane realistically couldn't threaten the truck without crashing (probability favoring Maggie dying before the Hitcher). Plus since the film wanted to cry wolf, I stopped listening entirely. So much for the film's climax.
Thrillers can ride amazingly thin plots with amazingly thin characters and get away with it. A film has to literally split hairs to cut them too thin, and amazingly many do.