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Video | Review by Dan Taylor
It's
sorta tough to rate FINAL DESTINATION against
the recent crop of dreadful teen-oriented
horror flicks like I KNOW WHAT YOU DID...,
I STILL
KNOW WHAT YOU DID..., URBAN LEGENDS,
SCREAM 3, etc. I almost feel like I should
douse my enthusiasm since it's not great.
It's just that in comparison to those "masked-killer-stalks-very-old-looking-teens"
flicks, this is CITIZEN KANE. Or at least
THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS.
Alex (Devon Sawa of IDLE
HANDS) is one of 40 high schoolers on
their way to a "field trip" to
France. Now, when I was in high school,
supervised "field trips" were
more often than not somewhat educational.
Which explains why we preferred the unsupervised
jaunts to Crazy Eddie's Beef and Beer at
the Pennsauken Mart. Let's just call it
an "anatomy lesson."
Where was I? Oh, right. So,
Alex and assorted stereotypes (hot chick,
artsy babe, tough guy and bimbo girlfriend,
cute teacher, etc.) board the plane until
he has a remarkably clear vision of the
plane going kaplooey in the night sky over
NYC.
More than a bit shaken he
ends up causing a scene that gets him (and
four others) kicked off the plane. The artsy-chick-who-likes-to-show-her-belly-button
feels the "it's gonna blow" vibe,
and takes a powder, too. Moments later the
plane goes down – 'natch – and
Alex is suddenly an outcast among the survivors...
the dopey guy thinks he's psychic, the tough
guy thinks he's creepy, the FBI thinks he
might've blowed the plane up. Blowed it
up real good. Only his best bud (whose brother
went down with da plane) and the artsy chick
(who gets better and better looking as the
flick goes on) don't treat him like a pariah.
Unfortunately, his support
system starts to drop as a pissed Grim Reaper
starts picking the survivors off one-by-one.
You see, they were all supposed to perish
on the plane, and Mr. Death does not tolerate
failure.
From here on out FINAL DESTINATION
is a pretty decent slasher flick, except
there's no real slasher. Sure, Death has
a hand in their demises, but ain't that
true for us all? Alex and Artsy figure that
there's a "design" to the deaths
(thanks to a five-minute cameo by Tony "CANDYMAN"
Todd as a creepy mortician), but how do
they cheat the inevitable from happening?
FD creates a tasty bit of
tension with its how-are-they-gonna-buy-it,
funhouse set-up, and the payoffs are suitably
gory or surprisingly jolting in a price-of-admission
kinda way. Especially when you consider
that the set-ups and scenarios are cliches
on cliches. Unfortunately, the whole thing
ends with a tacked-on, ending-by-screen-test
that is destined to leave a bad taste in
your mouth.
