Joy Ride 2: We were unable to secure the return of Buffalo Bill from Monk!

This isn’t meant as an overall complaint about the film, which is an utterly servicable thriller and perfectly fine follow up to the first Joy Ride, which is notable for being the last film J.J. Abrams wrote during the ‘hack screenwriter’ phase of his career, before moving on to the ‘genre visionary’ phase. It was also the second time that year Paul Walker had appeared in a film with Ted Levine, although in Joy Ride Ted just did a voiceover once production was finished.

The plot of this film is fairly similar to the first, in that people driving through the desert get menaced by a trucker, but differs in the villain’s incitement to action. This time, rather than the main characters going out of their way to mess with a stranger and earning his ire, it’s a random, somewhat understandable error that causes the problem. This leads to kidnapping and sexualized violence/humilation, as you see more and more often in film these days.

My problem with the movie comes right at the ending, and it’s kind of a key one – the sequel setup.