Final Destination (2000)

James Wong

USA

98 min, color, English

Here's a riddle: did the writers realize they were creating more than "just a crowd-pleaser" or was that just a bonus? It's been over two years since I watched this film and it must have been quite pleasing if I could still remember it enough to buy the DVD. So I got the brand new shining disc and sat through Final Destination for a second time. This review is therefore more about second impressions than first ones although I will try to recollect a bit for those who have not seen it.

Surprisingly enough, the movie holds up pretty well on a second run as well. This is most often not the case for this type of friday evening fare which depends on scaring the crap out of the teenage audience by startling sounds and unexpected flashes of violence. These gimmicks only work the first time around because the second time around you are well prepared (even if you don't want to be). That's why there's usually no second time around for these films.

Final Destination has quite a bit of the unexpected gimmick as well. But it turns out there's more to it. I found myself puzzling again over the very same questions I did the first time I saw it. Briefly, the story is about cheating death. Not in the Bergman playing-chess cerebral and pensive way, but in the modern who's-got-the-goods cool and aggressive version.

Alex (Devon Sawa) has a premonition upon boarding the flight to Paris with his high school class. He sees the plane exploding upon take-off. Many people have this sort of "premonition" and it's called "fear of flying" and so, not surprisingly, Alex is dismissed as being simply scared. In the scuffle resulting from his panicked tantrum, he is removed from the plane along with several class-mates and a teacher. While they are bickering at the gate about boarding the next flight, the plane explodes in midair.

In the days that follow, Alex slowly realizes that it is not over, which, of course, should not be surprising. Figuring out what the it is that is not over, however, turns out to be tricky and, once known, depressingly inescapable. You see, Death has a plan for everyone and, seeing how Alex screwed up its nicely planned killing everybody bit (doesn't it get boring... killing day after day after day), it is now pissed and, being the diligent chess-playing thing that it is, Death has worked out a new plan for the survivors who were supposed to die on the plane.

The game becomes one of outwitting Death who, rather conveniently has pretty transparent plans as far as devil-work goes. So it plans to off them in the order they were going to die on the plane, and so Alex figures out who's going to be next, etc. However, you can "cheat" Death by surviving (it apparently only gets one hack at you at a time). The problem that I saw with this was figuring out what counts as a murder attempt and what counts as a preparatory scare. This comes up at the very end.

Anyway, once it skips you, Death goes to the next, bringing us to the second question. Does it do round-robin? Or does it stop after one iteration? If it does stop after one iteration, do you become immortal? This puzzle is resolved in the end in a way that promises a sequel.

I definitely enjoyed the movie the first time around. It is smart, it's engaging, it's wildly entertaining (I still shudder recalling the bus scene), and it's new. Or was new. Or maybe not. Anyway, it was cool. As I mentioned before, I was rather surprised to see that it was pretty good the second time around as well. However, perhaps inevitably, the minor annoyances of the first one now became more prominent. On the other hand, I still enjoyed toying with ideas of the "what would I do if I were in that situation" sort. This is always neat, matching your brains against those of the writers.

I think that I would just kill somebody out of sequence and this spoil the entire Death-design thingie. Would that work?

Performances. Pretty decent all around although Devon did sweat a bit too much. Ali Larter is absolutely amazing. This is one hell of a girl and I would not mind seeing her over and over in many films, even ones as stupid as Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. I also liked the gay guy from Dawson's Creek (Kerr Smith) playing the macho Carter who managed to become quite hateful in a way that only really macho guys can. He was excellent.

Surprise on the DVD. Well, it's not an easter egg, but it is almost as exciting. The nice people at New Line included the deleted scenes, the alternate ending, and the reason these were cut. You may choke when you hear it, but it was the pre-screening and the reactions they got from the audiences that made them change the film. Unfortunately, the result made the film much better than it otherwise would have been. I say "unfortunately" because I would have liked the authors coming up with the better ideas, not a bunch of moro... ahem, teenagers.

The cold truth is that the original ending sucked. They had Ali get pregnant with Alex's child and then Alex dies, and then the new birth conquers death or something. Boy, am I glad they got rid of that nonsense (it was quite funny that everyone involved in the project kept referring to the original ending as being deep and philosophical --- which, by the way, are the two words that invariably denote something shallow and stupid --- and how the change was made to satisfy the crowds). But there's a reason the crowds find the new ending better: it fits the logic of the film, it fits its mood, and it fits the tempo. The alternate ending did neither of the above and would have been a miserable failure for all these reasons anyway. It's less to do with gore than with the internal consistency of the movie, which the new ending preserves.

I must say I am going to see the sequel even though I've heard bad things about it. For one, it has Ali Larter in it (who, by the way is not the single survivor of the first). But also, I expect it to be bloodier, messier, and stupider than the first. Naturally, this makes it a must-see in my book. Heck, I'd probably buy the DVD too.

February 7, 2003