Directed by James Wong
Starring Devon Sara, Ali Larter, Kerr Smith and Tony Todd
Looks like we're headed back to school for this week's review. High school, that is - the high school years of one Mr. Lick Ness Monster.
There have been a few horror movies in my lifetime that set off a huge wave in the teen crowd. Scream was that way a few years before this, and The Ring would do the same a short time after. But in the spring and summer of 2000, if you hadn't seen the movie with the plane crash, creepy shadow-stalking death, the whipped-cream bikini girl and the chick who got hit by the bus...you were out of it, man. And you can rest assured that I was there on opening Friday.
My reasoning was probably a bit different than most at that time. Originally written as an X-Files spec script, it was ironically enough picked up as the directorial debut for one James Wong - the same James Wong who, along with writing partner Glen Morgan, was one of the early season featured writers for The X-Files. The same show that long-time readers of the blog will recognize as my favorite TV show of all time, regardless of how much of a Vince Russo-esque clusterfuck it turned into during its later seasons. That connection was enough to sell me on the idea, and it's a decision that I never regretted, as the flick was a big success and spawned a franchise that - even at its worst - has managed to stay fun and relevant throughout a few goofy incarnations. In that regard, this really is the Friday the 13th for the 21st century that could never, ever dream of being. With that, let's get to the movie.
Of course, most people know the basics of Final Destination by now, and this movie that started the trends doesn't do much different. It begins with slightly squirrelly high school student Alex Browning (Sawa, a guy that I'm truly surprised never made it bigger, because he had loads of charisma and acting chops) anticipating a class trip to Paris, France when a premonition involving the entire plane being engulfed in flames. Lo and behold, a series of events starts once on board the plane that seems eerily familiar to his premonition, leading to himself and a group of mismatched classmates being led off the plane to await a following flight. When the plane actually does explode, that sets our plot in motion.
Quick, spoilerific information for those who haven't seen any of these movies. The flick doesn't have an out-and-out villain in the way that most horror movies do. Instead, what we have here as the kids start getting picked off one by one is a sort of "world at large" villain where everyday objects, particularly things that are as sharp and nasty as posssible, suddenly become evil. It seems that death has been cheated by Alex's vision, and now it's snapback time to correct the mistake. Having said that, this flick DOES differ from later movies in the franchise in a couple key ways. For starters, the Goldberg Variation-esque methods that death employs aren't quite as intricate as they would be almost immediately after this one. Secondly, death itself seems to be a smart, sentient thing in this film that does its best to cover its tracks, a plot device that was completely forgotten starting with the first sequel when it became clear that it would be a bit more fun to have massive, gory set pieces filled with lots of weird, wild stuff. (/Dana Carvey as Johnny Carson).
Anyway, that's what we've got from Final Destination at this point onward, and it more than delivers the goods on a visceral level. Which brings me to element #2 when it comes to my horror movie scale - emotional involvement. To be sure, this movie has some collection of actors. In addition to Sawa, there's Ali Larter (she of the aforementioned whipped cream bikini, which sadly did not occur in this movie), Kristen Cloke, Daniel "Samson Tollet" Roebuck, Seann William Scott as the requisite douchy jock character in the role that he has down to absolute perfection and Amanda Detmer of Saving Silverman relative fame. Oh, and Tony Todd as the creepiest coroner in the history of film. Really, with the exception of Scott and Todd, though, every character is pretty disposable - up to and including our main protagonist in Alex. From an emotional standpoint, this movie is a bit of a letdown, and this is one aspect where I actually really do wonder what this movie would have been like as an X-Files episode, with Mulder and Scully investigating these deaths and the high school students serving as the B-story.
In the end, that doesn't really matter. This is a flick that proves that a great concept and solid execution can cover up some pretty substantial flaws. The excellent atmosphere that Wong manages to serve up doesn't hurt, either. Since this movie gets pretty regular airplay on lazy Saturday afternoons, there's definitely much worse ways that you can spend wasting away in Margaritaville. That, and there are some deaths in this thing that are still just outright cringeworthy a full decade-and-a-half removed.
*** out of ****. A very solid start to a solid series. Recommended.
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