In the original film, Urban Legend, several talents combine to form a star-studded cast. Joshua Jackson and Jared Alto team up as testosterone-induced eye candy, while Rebecca Gayheart and Tara Reid bring in the women’s half of the cast.
The most recent edition, Urban Legends: Final Cut, stars Jennifer Morrison (Amy) and Matthew Davis (Travis). Morrison displays the previous talents gained of past careers as the main character. Furthermore, Davis, one of the less experienced actors, sometimes surprisingly, evokes a believable attempt at portraying the fine line between contempt and sincerity.
Like Morrison and Davis, the cast as a whole enters the film with established credentials in previous acting careers from off-Broadway and short-term cameos in some highly regarded television series.
For example, Jessica Cauffiel guest starred in the television comedy series, “Frasier,” as well as appearing in the critically acclaimed “Law and Order.” In contrast, the talents these actors possess must have been lost because they certainly do not come out of hiding for Final Cut.
For example, Cauffiel’s character is only believable because she plays the role of Sandra-a porn star notorious for her bad acting.
The writers, Paul Harris and Scott Derrickson, completely failed in creating a convincing a cast of film-eager college students. Several characters briefly fly in and out. This can be easily seen by examining the character of most significance, the villain.
Taking the cake, he makes all of about three appearances throughout the entire course of the film. The familiar notion that quality is better than quantity in no way applies to this movie. In addition to having small roles, they do not possess any quality about them. They hardly have any overall effect in the story line.
Despite the lack of character, the less than stimulating plot continues its duration. In the Final Cut (hopefully we can take this literally, as an end to this series), Amy competes with her fellow students at Alpine University for the prestigious Hitchcock Award.
The race for this award proves to be cutthroat because it nearly guarantees the winning student a successful Hollywood career in filming. In addition, Amy realizes that she must live up to her father, who died after a short-lived, but famous career in documentary filming. She experiences writer’s block, but after a long deliberation, she meets Officer Reese.
This character, played by Loretta Devine, from Urban Legend ends, confirms the rumored urban legend murders from her previous experiences as a campus security officer. In search for a director, Amy calls upon her dreamy fellow filmmaker in the running. Travis answers her prayers for a director.
Although Travis seems distraught over his unsuccessful attempt to capture the Hitchcock Award, he sends her to an overly confident camera operator and director Simon (Marco Hofschneider). The following day, the tightly knit university community learns that Travis terminated his chances to win the award by committing suicide in the campus’s bell tower.
The plot thickens when the rest of the students who acted in Travis’ film begin turning up dead. Sadly, like other low-talent teen-oriented so-called horror films, one is left to guess who the real killer will turn out to be-the shady security guard, Resse, Travis’ mysterious twin brother Trevor, or Venessa, the lesbian sound operator.
In summary, it is easy to see that this film hardly has any chances at outweighing its bad acting, poor development of character and weak plot.
Do not let another Urban Legend mishap win-another chance at luring you into the seats at the movie theater. C
