Final Destination (2000)

Must See Movie...

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Fantastic!

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Stay away if your worse fear is flying!A pretty good (tense at timed) story, worthy of a watch, easy viewing!

'Final Destination' is most notable for two things mainly. The first being that it was the introduction of a fascinating and clever premise that is pretty unique for a supernatural horror. The other being that it was the feature film directing debut of James Wong, best known beforehand as a veteran of 'The X Files'.It spawned four sequels with the fifth film being released in 2011. While it is flawed and somewhat of an uneven film, the first 'Final Destination' is still, six years after the fifth film, one of the franchise's better outings. Perhaps even the best, and the one where the premise feels the freshest. The more stale the concept got, the more the novelty wore off and the less effective the film. Could 'Final Destination' have executed its premise better? Perhaps. Mostly, to me, it did it quite well.Visually, 'Final Destination' looks pretty good for low budget. It's slickly shot and very atmospheric, while the plane effects in the Flight 180 plane scene/explosion are quite impressive. The music score has a suitable eeriness.The film is never dull and is a vast majority of the time fun and suspenseful, with elaborately creative death scenes that are ingeniously unsettling. The film's highlight is the opening Flight 180 scene, anyone already with a fear of flying will have their fear exemplified and it is likely to turn people from boarding a plane for a while. Wong does competently with the directing and the portrayal of Death is an interesting and well done one.Acting varies, with personable Devon Sawa, affecting Ali Larter and Tony Todd's creepy cameo coming off best. Really liked the characters' surnames, that were nifty homages to horror/suspense icons.Not all the acting works however. The others are saddled with one-dimensional and flatly written roles and are a mix of bland (Kristen Cloke) and irritating (Kerr Smith), also found myself not being able to take Seann William Scott seriously.The biggest issue is the script, which is very high in the cheese and awkwardness factors and there is some clumsy exposition that often feels under-explored and not really going anywhere. Generally the story is nice, but things could have been explained better and explored more and it's a little too reliant on coincidence. Things also take a dumb turn towards the end before the film concludes on a logic-defying note.Overall, patchy but entertaining. 7/10 Bethany Cox

'FINAL DESTINATION' was directed by James Wong and stars Devon Sawa, Ali Larter and Kerr Smith. ​After a student(Devon Sawa) visions the plane he's about to board explode, he throws a fit and gets him and a group of his friends kicked of the flight. Second into the air, the plane explodes. All seems fine but when the survivors begin getting knocked off one by one, they must band together to discover the truth.Don't watch this movie if you're looking for a genuinely frightening and scary experience - you WILL be disappointed. This movie is more comedic than anything. I laughed so much more than I felt frightened. Now I think about it, I wasn't frightened at all. I wasn't even disturbed by the deaths. It was all just kind of dull. Watch this movie if you're drinking with friends because you will have a laugh, just don't watch it if you're looking for a horror movie.I really like the gimmick of this movie. It's pretty interesting and I would love to see it be explored more, with a different cast and director. The actual story itself was very poorly written. Character's are stupid and this makes it very hard to care about them. A lot of the things that happen in this movie make no sense and the deaths itself contain no logic behind them. I understand they tried to excuse it but there should still be logic and setup to each kill to justify it. Maybe even include red herrings; keep the viewer guessing. Another flaw with the deaths is how generic and boring they are. Needless gore and violence is the one thing I would remove from movies today if I could; it's sick and never works. That said, I would have actually liked to see more creativity and thought put into the deaths. Keep it comic violence and make the movie a full blown comedy; that'd be fun.The only performance in this movie that wasn't completely robotic and forgettable was Kristen Cloke as Valerie Lewton. Even that performance was just barely passable. The rest of the acting was pathetic. Devon Sawa was shocking, Ali Larter was abysmal, Kerr Smith tried but failed - no one impressed me and only one person barely escaped my scold. Every movie like this were the cast are getting picked off one by one needs to include likable characters to make me want them to live or an interesting antagonist to make the deaths interesting. This movie succeeds at neither. The characters are dull, bland and forgettable, and the antagonist(I won't spoil it) doesn't appear for the entirety of the movie. This lack of good characters makes me actively dislike the characters and means I don't care if they die which means I have lesser interest in the movie. This movie hit the trifecta of trashy cinematography. It was badly lit, shot and edited. Nothing in this movie is technically proficient. The effects are also atrocious. I don't care if it was made in the year 2000, realistic dinosaurs were made in 1993.This movie was not at all frightening(if anything, it was comedic). I laughed a lot in this movie due to the clichés and lack of genuinely frightening moments. There is a scene towards the end were I should have been on the edge of my seat but I was on the verge of crying with laughter. For what this movie is attempting to do, it fails. But for sheer entertainment value, I'll recommend this movie. Watch it with some friends. I'll rate it 3 Expert Getaway Strategies out of 10.

Ordinarily, a cheap and trashy film with a silly plot and weak script would be enough keep most people, myself included, away. 'Final Destination', however, more than makes up for these flaws in sheer entertainment value. The first time I saw this film many years ago, I enjoyed it enough to buy the DVD, and it has remained something of a guilty pleasure all this time.Some films try way too hard to tick all the boxes and create the perfect picture, when sometimes all that's needed is an original, unique idea and enough imagination to put it into practice. That's exactly what 'Final Destination' is - someones imagination let loose, with the end result a highly flawed, but highly entertaining film.