FINAL DESTINATION, 2000
Movie Review

Death is coming and Alex Browning (DEVON SAWA) is blessed with the curse of knowing when, how and where the grim reaper will strike.

Alex's bone-chilling gift reveals itself just as the teenager embarks on a trip to Paris with his high school French class. In the plane's cabin, buckled-in and ready for take-off, Alex experiences his first powerful premonition. He sees the plane explode in a fiery blaze moments after leaving the ground. Sensing imminent doom, Alex panics and insists that everyone get off the plane. In the melee than ensues, seven people including Alex, are forced to disembark.

Back in the airport terminal, Alex is surrounded by those who were kicked off the aircraft: his friends Billy (SEANN WILLIAM SCOTT) and Tod (CHAD E. DONELLA); Clear (ALI LARTER) a young woman who instinctively heeded Alex's warning; Carter (KERR SMITH), who ends up in fisticuffs with Alex and is ousted off the plane along with his girlfriend Terry (AMANDA DETMER); and Ms. Lewton (KRISTEN CLOKE), the teacher who volunteers to stay with the ejected students.

As each fumes about their lost opportunity to visit Paris, Alex's horrific premonition proves tragically accurate. The ill-fated plane explodes in midair. Shocked and confused, the survivors struggle to understand how Alex was able to anticipate the catastrophe. Some are drawn to his eerie clairvoyance, but most of the group is scared of his gift. As skeptical FBI Agents question his every word, Alex tries to reconcile the tragedy and return to a normal life but portents of doom surround him. Ultimately Alex comes to believe that somehow he and the others cheated death. One by one, as each of these fugitives of fate meets an untimely end, Alex and his remaining friends must band together to change the course of destiny and outwit the untamable forces of death.

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REVIEW:

The problem with the original is that it’s a good story. That’s right. It’s problem is that it’s a good story. One the plot begins unfolding you begin to embark on a roller coaster ride with the cast trying to figure out what the hell is going on. By the end of the film everything is pieced together nicely and it all makes sense by the credits. The problem here is that horror movies are franchises from day one. They are cheap to make and easy to make a quick buck off of. So if it’s even moderately successful then the sequels begin to spawn off before week 2 of it’s box office run. What’s great about this film is that it not only contains a mysteriously invisible grim reaper and gruesome unexpected deaths, but it has great character relationships to pull us through the down time. Mostly, horror plots need to be simple – like Halloween. Stay alive. There’s your characters motivation. Done and done. But with Final Destination, there’s a

The Story: The story is well told because the characters are very real. They’re immature and stubborn. When one of them is forced to grow up and starts preaching about responsibility and looking out for yourself, he’s viewed as a crazy uptight teenager who should either be locked in an insane asylum or arrested for murdering people. The best part of the film is the blame game that goes on in which Alex’s gift is seen as a curse from other people who put blame on him for the actions that occur that he tries to save them from. He loses friends and becomes alienated. All because he cares about them and is trying to protect them like a father dealing with his rebel kids. At the heart of it all is a true morality tale of this generation. Instead of the archetypes of no smoking, drinking or having premarital sex of the 70’s and 80’s, this film tries to incorporate an idea that a new generation needs to grow up and be more responsible for their actions and learn to trust one another.

Acting: Devin Sawa and Kerr Smith steal the show. Ali Larter really isn’t her “feisty” self as usual, but it’s alright, it’s not her story. Sawa really makes us believe that he’s trying to do what’s best for the people he cares about, all while dealing with the guilt of what’s happened and how he may be responsible for it all.

Directing: James Wong does an excellent job of not letting style overshadow substance. While the film is stylistically appealing, especially in it’s aesthetics with the use of color in the production design, the characters never become talking props. It’s generic human types sure, nothing too complex, but still enough that they never become boring. Every emotional arc makes sense and you really care for the characters and the plot that you’ve been drawn into.

Cinematography: Excellently done. The camera movements and usage was able to create a killer, a grim reaper, who was never actually on film. It may seem very blatant what’s going on and people would have liked a little more subtley but in the end of the day this is not an art house drama. There’s a thrill to knowing what’s going on when the characters don’t. Without excellent camera work like this, we wouldn’t be able to have that. For our characters, knowledge is the death of suspense. And so it’s great that Alex is the only character who knows. It makes him our protagonist.

Production Design: Very strong. I liked the use of a lot of props and dummies in this film, as opposed to an overuse of CGI. Granted, the computer’d stuff is still there, but it’s used only when necessary. But still, this film is still grounded a lot in reality and done in camera – which really lends itself to aiding in horrifying an audience and allowing them to suspend their disbelief.

Editing: There’s very few jump cuts to something scary, if any. Everything is slowly drawn out, just the way I like it in horror movies. Well done.

Score: It’s just kind of there. It’s generic for the most part, but it’s a horror movie with a good story, so it works. We don’t mind it.

Special Effects: As I stated above, it’s used, but not overused. There’s some things I understand not being able to do, but boy did I sure believe that plane blew up. For what it’s worth, if I’m not specifically looking out for it, I don’t notice it’s there. The mark of good CGI. The other special effects, the practical ones, are old school. I love it.

In closing: Final Destination, is a good jump scare movie. Not because the editing jumps to something scary. But something scary builds slowly and jumps out in the frame. Or, it comes out of nowhere. The characters are more complex than usual, but nothing Oscar worthy. It’s definitely a “thrill ride” so to speak, but only the first time around. On repeat viewings it’s fun to watch how it all happens and be ahead of the show, but once you’ve seen it twice, you’ve pretty much seen everything you’ll need to see. I will remark, with the exception of the deaths by the end of the movie, the subtle deaths at the front of the film are much more creepy because they could, in theory, actually happen – playing on common human fears. It’s definitely worth checking out once or twice.

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Final Destination