***
Director: James Wong Written by: James Wong, Glen Morgan and Jeffrey Reddick. (Wong and Morgan use to write for “The X-Files.”)
*** -- Final Destination is different from most slasher movies. It actually crept its way under my skin. I have a trip to go on during spring break, and this movie has made me scared of taking an airplane. Also, the killer in this movie is quite different than your usual Jason or Freddy.
The movie as
a whole isn’t entirely terrifying, but it’s always creepy. The scariest part is the opening
sequence, where Alex Browning (Devon Sawa) has a vision of his French class dying in a
fiery explosion on their plane to Paris. His vision is so strong (and quite vivid and scary
to watch) he believes it. Alex tries exiting the plane, gets in a fight with some
classmates, and five of them are ejected. As they argue in the terminal, the plane
explodes behind them at take off. After some questioning from the FBI the students who
stayed off the plane are let go, but the movie does not end there (well, it can’t anyway, it
would be too short and very sadistic).
The movie never really lets off on its intensity or
pace from there on out. The survivors wonder if maybe they were meant to be on that
plane. They begin to understand their own mortality, as everyone does growing up. But
then they get philosophical. What if there number was up? What if fate was out to get
them?
To give much anymore away from the plot would ruin the fun of seeing it.
Watching these characters try to figure out things and keep from accidentally getting
killed in the meantime makes for good entertainment. “There’s a design behind
things,” Devon Sawa said. “You just have to open up to the signs.” The camera shows
us some of those signs early on in the movie, as Sawa is preparing for his trip, not
noticing them: his alarm clock flickering the numer of his flight; signs that say
terminal (well, it’s an airport—but doing a close-up on the word is still creepy); the words
final destination.
Later in the movie Alex opens up to these signs, and sometimes he
can see them. Devon Sawa does a good job of living in fear and never being too sure of
himself (or if what he discovers is even true). He throws a magazine at a rotating fan in
his living room, and a clipping from the magazine lands on his leg: TOD. It’s a fraction
of the word today, but Alex thinks Todd. Could fate be out to get Todd (one of the
survivors who stayed off) next?
I was actually on the edge of my seat while watching this movie. It has that kind of intensity. You want to know what happens, how it will happen, etc., but it’s also kind of intelligently written and creepy. The whole movie is as suspenseful as the beginning is scary. I guess that airplane sequence really got to me. Maybe it’s just because I have a flight in less than a month.
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