Final Destination (2000)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

James Wong

Writers (WGA):

Glen Morgan (screenplay) &
James Wong (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

17 March 2000 (USA)

Genre:

Horror

Tagline:

Most people have dreams. For Alex, this is real.

Plot:

After having a vision of his friends crashing in a plane, he tells them not to get on only later his friends start getting killed one by one.

Plot Keywords:

Friend | Premonition | Death | Teen | High School Student

Awards:

3 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

Devon Sawa	...	Alex Browning
Ali Larter	...	Clear Rivers
Kerr Smith	...	Carter Horton
Kristen Cloke	...	Valerie Lewton
Daniel Roebuck	...	Agent Weine
Roger Guenveur Smith	...	Agent Schreck
Chad Donella	...	Tod Waggner (as Chad E. Donella)
Seann William Scott	...	Billy Hitchcock
Tony Todd	...	Bludworth
Amanda Detmer	...	Terry Chaney
Brendan Fehr	...	George Waggner
Forbes Angus	...	Larry Murnau
Lisa Marie Caruk	...	Christa Marsh
Christine Chatelain	...	Blake Dreyer
Barbara Tyson	...	Barbara Browning

Also Known As:

Destination ultime (Canada: French title)
Flight 180 (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated R for violence and terror, and for language.

Runtime:

98 min

Country:

USA | Canada

Language:

English | French

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Canada:18A (Alberta/British Columbia) (Canadian Home Video rating) | Canada:AA (Ontario) (re-rating) | Canada:R (Ontario) (original rating) | Malaysia:18SG | Philippines:PG-13 | Argentina:13 | Australia:MA | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:R (Manitoba) | Canada:18 (Nova Scotia) | Chile:14 | Finland:K-16 | France:-12 | Germany:16 | Hong Kong:IIB | Netherlands:16 | New Zealand:R16 | Norway:15 | Singapore:PG | South Korea:18 | Spain:18 | Sweden:15 | Switzerland:16 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:16 (canton of Vaud) | UK:15 | USA:R (NO. 36987) | Portugal:M/16

Filming Locations:

Squamish, British Columbia, Canada

Company:

New Line Cinema

Trivia:

Kerr Smith and Seann William Scott took travel sickness pills (Dramamine) before each plane crash take and were half asleep and very weak during the shots - that's why they aren't shown close-up much.

Goofs:

Continuity: Clear's hair in the garage when she takes off her welding helmet is curled, then straight, then curled again.

Quotes:

Hare Krishna: Death is not the end.
Val Lewton: It will be for you if you keep harassing my students.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Cellular (2004)

Soundtrack:

And When I Die

Final Destination: 8/10

When you go to watch a movie like Final Destination, which is obviously a teen horror movie, you take your chances. You could get something genuinely creepy yet tongue-in-cheek, like Scream, or you could wind up seeing something like Darkness Falls or They. You just never know. When Final Destination came up on my Netflix list, I didn't know what to expect. Would it be something original and scary, or just some lame dud? Thankfully, it turned out to be the former.

Alex (Devon Sawa), along with about 40 others, are all set to take off on a plane destined for their senior trip in France. Right before it is set to take off, however, he has a premonition that shows him that soon after takeoff the plane will crash and everyone on board will be dead. He and others are forced off of the plane, and, sure enough, the plane crashes with everyone else on board. While everyone thinks that Alex caused the accident, he knows that they were supposed to die on board. Soon, everyone who was supposed to be on the plane start dying one by one.

Knowing that this was written and directed by the same team who did Willard, I knew that a lot of the movie wouldn't be just needless blood, but that there would be some sort of a creepy atmosphere to it all. And, by gum, there was. Although it wasn't as atmospheric as the aforementioned movie, and it relied a lot on sudden violence, it was still creepy. It seems like horror movies today rely on quick jumps to scare the audience. Final Destination sure had some, but also the music and the general movie itself was thrilling. When you could see that something was going to happen, you wanted to yell at the character to not do so-and-so. Then you sit back and enjoy the ride.

Something else that surprised me was how many special effects were needed. That was one major drawback. At times, the special effects didn't look real AT ALL (re: the bathroom scene), or there were too many when less is more (re: the final, climactic storm). One other thing that upset me was the constant need to do odd lighting. Because of the off-again, on-again lighting, it's sometimes impossible to tell what's happening. In Final Destination's pursuit to become something ultra-modern, nifty camera movements are tried, but for the unnecessary reasons. For example, a long, overhead tracking shot is used when two people are going to the bathroom. Very unnecessary, if you ask me. I just realized how much Glen Morgan and James Wong are fascinated with people going to the bathroom. There must be a few scenes of that in Final Destination, and one quite humorous one in Willard

I also thought that the movie took too long to get started. We understand that Alex will see the plane crashing, but for about the first half hour that's all that's `implied'. It's very annoying. Thankfully, the characters aren't as stupid as they usually are in teen horror movies, and I did like all of the talk about `death's pattern', etc. Overall, get on board to Final Destination and it won't crash.

My rating: 8/10

Rated R for violence and terror, and for language.