A breath of new life into the 'dying' horror genre

Rating: 10/10 (2 October 2006)

*Final SPOILERS*
Teenager Alexander 'Alex' Browning (Devon Sawa, 'Idle Hands') is about to fly to France on Flight 180, but a few seconds after boarding he has the terrifying vision of the plane having a terrible accident and killing everyone on board.
He is about to dismiss it as a bad dream, when everything that happened at the beginning of the 'dream' does indeed happen, and understandably freaks out, getting himself and some peers - best friend Tod Waggner (Chad E. Donella, 'The X-Files'), jock jerk Carter Horton (Kerr Smith, 'Dawson's Creek') and his girlfriend Terry Chaney (Amanda Detmer, 'What About Brian'), goof Billy Hitchcock (Seann William Scott, 'American Pie'), distraught teacher Valerie Lewton (Kristen Cloke, 'MillenniuM') and mysterious loner Clear Rivers (Ali Larter, 'Heroes') - off the plane.
The crash happens, and the feelings of everyone, including Alex himself, are mixed. But the worst is yet to come...
They weren't meant to get off the plane, and Death begins to reclaim its dues.
But Alex seems to have the gift (or curse) to be able to notice clues about who is going to die and how, and finds out that Death is following a plan, an order, in killing them off...
An instant classic of the horror genre, 'Final Destination', based on the 1999 crash of TWA Flight 800, has been a huge (and deserved) success, for the audience if not critically, getting two sequels (and a third, which is rumored to come out in 2009) and lots of fans.
And with good reason; this story manages to create suspense and terror without the usual knife-wielding maniac, melds together the supernatural and the '10 Little Indians' kind of movie with great results, putting successfully even a touch of humor in it, and raise thought-provoking questions about Life and Death without being bogged down into Bergmanisms.
Plus, it has, rare occasion in the horror genre, a leading man. So, more power to it!
Final Destination: 10/10.