Not for the squeamish

Rating: 7/10 (17 April 2000)

We've all heard the phrase, `kids do the craziest things-they think they're invincible." Given the recent surge of teen slasher movies like "Scream" and "Urban Legend," Hollywood producers are well aware of this truth. Seems like they're serving up a little reminder to the youth of America: Your number could come up at any moment, just like anybody else.
Even if Hollywood has no such intentions, it has discovered that their younger audiences are getting more sophisticated and are looking for new and clever ways to see themselves get killed. The latest killing spree film, Final Destination, doesn't mess around with guns and psycho killers, but gets right to the point: The killer here literally IS Death, which proves It can get pretty creative when it comes time to claim somebody. The idea is that Death has a design for everyone, that each moment of our lives is just a cycle of events that lead up to the End. We're free to live our lives as long as Death lets us. Pretty depressing stuff but there is a point, which I'll explore in a minute. First, the nuts and bolts of the story...
Seems Alex Browning (Devon Sawa), a high school senior, is given a special, unexplained ability to foresee his demise. He sees it exactly as it's going to happen, in one of the most terrifying sequences ever filmed. Apparently Death hadn't taken this into account; Alex goes berzerk and warns others of what's about to happen. A few people are saved, but most of the people involved proceed right into Death's arms, just as Alex foresaw (I'm not going to give away the details of this opening sequence, simply because too many other people, plus the film's trailer, have already ruined it). So here we have seven people who Death was all ready to claim, alive and safe. Apparently, this makes Death mad and It starts to pick them off one by one. Seeing as these people, five of Alex's fellow students and one teacher, defied Death's original plan, Death has to get creative. The most mundane of household objects, most of which we would never think of as lethal, are used together in bizarre, sometimes silly, chain reactions of events that lead to the kill. All of these scenes are shocking, gruesome, or both, so be warned: this film is not for everybody.
Along with having visions of his own death, Alex is able to foresee others' deaths and tries again to cheat the Reaper. He beat It once, and believes he can do so again (ah, the ego of the teenage male). There's a scene in which Alex knows it's his turn to go, so he locks himself inside a remote cabin and duct tapes down anything and everything that could possibly turn into a lethal object. He eats pudding from a tin can, having used leather work gloves to open it, sloshing the food around in his mouth to make sure there's nothing hard inside that he could choke on. This was a funny moment, and humor is something this movie uses well to give the audience a break. The scene reminded me of the way a parent of a curious toddler would start to think about household objects in a way she never thought of them before. This parent starts thinking of scenarios in which, a ball of yarn for instance, could become lethal. Whether you think this is wisdom or paranoia, that parent understands one thing: Death does not discriminate. It happens to the helpless, the innocent, those who least `deserve' it. As cold and unfeeling as this film seems most of the time, it takes care to illustrate this point.
This ain't no masterpiece, but this was an innovative piece of work; a worthy first crack at feature directing by TV veteran James Wong. In the simplest terms, Final Destination is one hell of a good thrill ride. Suspend your disbelief at the ticket office and buckle up.
Grade: B-