Retrospective: Final Destination (2000)

FINAL DESTINATION

Verdict: 4/5 stars

REVIEW BY JOHN ULMER

What if Death had a plan for you, but by matter of intervention that plan 
was cut short? What if you and a handful of other people were selected to 
die on a certain date, only you didn't. What would happen? In short, the 
question is this: Is Death egocentric? Because if Death's plan was altered, 
well, he could just shrug like most of us when our plans go awry and turn 
away. But in "Final Destination," a film about a band of teenagers who never 
board a plane destined to explode in flight, it appears as though Death has 
a very large ego--one that doesn't like to be messed with. Why else would he 
chase the survivors down and try to kill them in a ritualistic pattern?

It's about time a clever premise intertwined with the teenage-horror genre. 
After years of being subjected to such "quality" material lining up the 
shelves at your local video store under the Horror Section, which might as 
well be named Horror for Teens, now you can stop worrying, because James 
Wong's "Final Destination" is not only smart, but tons of fun.

Alex (Devon Sawa), a seventeen-year-old highschooler, is going on a funded 
trip to Paris, France, with a horde of other teens. His flight, 180, is 
about to take off with him in it when he intercepts a startling vision. In 
it, the plane starts to take off and suddenly malfunctions, exploding in a 
haze of fire.

Alex's dream starts to follow course. Scared, he panics and exits the plane 
before take-off, along with a few other misled youths and a schoolteacher. 
They wait behind and agree to catch the next flight to Paris, when their 
original source of travel explodes in the sky, just as predicted by Alex.

Alex is shunned by many as a freak in the weeks to come. His best friend 
(who nearly boarded the plane along with Alex) commits suicide out of anger, 
frustration and sadness. But Alex realizes that perhaps he did not commit 
suicide after all--maybe it was Death coming back to follow through with his 
plan. Soon more die, and Alex comes up with a diagram of the plane's 
structure, and labels where everyone was sitting. He sees a pattern: The 
deaths are in sync with the position of where the victims would have been on 
the plane if it had taken off with them in it. So Alex tries to cheat Death 
again by fighting back--he comes close to fatality along with his other 
grave-destined friends (Seann William Scott, Ali Larter), but manages to 
stay alive by the hairs on his chin. (Well, actually, he doesn't have any 
hairs on his chin. But that's irrelevant, right?)

"Final Destination" has been done before in other ways, but this is one of 
the more memorable examples of the idea. It's a very smart teenage horror 
flick when you look at it in light of all the other profit-making Hollywood 
dreck. The beginning is beyond intriguing--the entire plane sequence and 
vision is handled with such great direction and timing by James Wong, it's 
easy to imagine how it could have been made by a lesser director without 
nearly the same gut-wrenching effect.

Wong, who co-wrote the script, uses some great camera techniques that help 
salvage this film. The acting isn't too bad either--Sean William Scott, who 
played Stifler in "American Pie" (1999), is especially funny in his role, 
much to the contrary with 2003's "Bulletproof Monk." Devon Sawa started his 
career with "Night of the Twisters" and hasn't been in too many memorable 
films since, including "Wild America" and "Slackers," but this ranks as one 
of his better movies and roles.

"Final Destination" is especially good in its first fifteen minutes, but 
after the plane segment, however, the film slowly but surely falls in a 
downward spiral. It becomes tiresome and even quite ridiculous as it draws 
to a close. However, the first half of "Final Destination" is your 
destination for fun.

- John Ulmer
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X-RT-RatingText: 4/5