This movie exemplifies WHY we go to the movies

Rating: 10/10 (22 February 2006)

Plot in a nutshell: High School student Alex Browning (Devon Sawa) has a vision that the plane he is about to take to France will explode. He and some other students get kicked off the plane for causing a huge disturbance.
It seems they have cheated death, but that is only a quickly evaporating illusion. Everyone who survived is about to pay the price because the grim reaper is an intractable enemy. Think of death here like The Terminator, or the unstoppable Borg from Star Trek, but with a malicious sense of humor.
Seeing Final Destination was one of the greatest movie-going experiences of my life. If they had been charging $100 a ticket, the price of admission would have been worth it. Movies like this should remind us all that waiting until a movie comes out on video is a poor decision. Almost invariably, the impact of seeing a movie is severely diminished on the TV screen (I don't care if you have a 70-inch plasma; nothing substitutes for seeing a movie in the theatre. When I saw Dawn of the Dead in the theatre, my heart was racing all night, and for the first time ever, I locked my bedroom door. When I watched it again on video.....zilch, nada.)
The script has plenty of clever twists and turns. The writing, editing, and cinematography are absolutely brilliant. Imagine taking a John Denver song, and making it a spooky harbinger of impending doom.
If I ever had to pick my top ten favorite movies of all time, Final Destination would definitely qualify.