Spotty Nostradamus versus the Grim Reaper in an excellent film - better than Scream!

Rating: 8/10 (22 May 2000)

It's not very often, but when it happens it marks the talking point for every movie conversation. A horror movie that is truly worthy of the title. Acting that isn't shady, a story line that's believable and not too far-fetched. Firstly, let me point something out, the advertisements for the movie are real! In no way will I allow for any spoilers in this comment because if anyone had spoiled this for me I'd have hunted them down and destroyed them. Okay, I strongly liked this movie and thought it well worthy of 9 out of 10. Why? Well bad acting ruins a film, good acting enhances a film. For this film the acting was brilliant! I haven't read any other comments so I don't know what the general consensus is but I thought the acting, on the whole was great. Devon Sawa, as the spotty faced, modern version of Nostradamus was immense. This guy has ability. The film opens, as you may know, with a guy called Alex Browning(Sawa) and a school class going to France. He feels weird and has a strange feeling. Anyway, to cut to the chase he gets on the plane and has a vision of how exactly the next five or ten minutes will play out. As it turns out, he ain't gonna leave that plane for a Kit Kat break....to put it mildly. He foresees the plane exploding and him turning to toast. Low and behold, when this vision ends, two girls ask him to swap seats, as happened exactly at the beginning of his vision. Anyway, the catalogue of events that transpires allows panicky Alex to decide that it would be in his, and everyone else's best interests if they left the plane. Here is a taste of the acting ability to come. He seems genuinely scared, his acting during this scene was as good a performance as I have seen in a long time. Moreover, he was helped by a few other noticeable performances. However, the directing was great as was the story-line. The plot - to defeat death. Throughout the film the manner in which the survivors from the plane crash are popped off by a vengeful and truly annoyed Grim Reaper makes me hope that when the big guy wants me, I don't do anything stupid like survive. If you haven't yet seen this film because of the hype , or because you are fed up with the post-Scream fanaticism that has swept throughout the country for the last few years, think again. I implore you to go to the next showing of this movie cos if you don't you will regret it. By the way, if it weren't for the neds who crowded into the cinema at the same time as my friends and I caught this movie, who talked and laughed for 30 minutes after every death scene and who, basically, could have ruined the film, it could have been well worth a ten!