First, I saw Final Destination 2, which featured a memorable opening accident, fun gory kills and half a brain. It was a great stoner's movie. Then I saw The Final Destination (see review here), which also featured a great opening accident and a few fun kills. But for me, it was too much. I really didn't need such a film, especially if you consider the extra bucks I had to pay for a mostly uninteresting transition to 3D. Finally, after denying many bargain bin copies a home, I finally picked up the original, thinking there just might be something to it, something to warrant a whopping three sequels , all of which shared almost exactly the same plotline.
Did I find a solid basis for the series? No. I found instead an intriguing, but flawed offering that shares virtually all of the sequels' weaknesses, including a criminally poor "surprise" ending that ultimately defuses the whole thing and leaves the viewer totally unfulfilled. Interestingly enough, this ending is virtually identical to that of #4, which really makes you wonder how many Final Destination films were needed considering how unwilling the filmmakers working on those sequels were to update the under-developed premise of the original.
As I said earlier, Final Destination is an intriguing but ultimately lazy film that fails to really capitalize on clever basic ideas. The opening sequence is simple and effective, showing us the inevitability of death through the perpetual motion of the fan in the protagonist's room. Then a smooth, albeit a little clumsy exposition scene introduces us to a classroom full of typical high schoolers boarding a plane headed for Paris. What the carefree youths ignore is that they are all supposed to die on that plane, according to "Death's design", which remains a hazy narrative device throughout the film. Fortunately, thanks to a highly dubious "out of body" experience through which the protagonist can foresee the tragedy, he manages to prevent a group of peers from boarding (and thus dying). But what he eventually comes to realize is that you cannot really cheat death, for the Reaper will necessarily come back to claim his due. When later exposed to a diagram showing the route of the faulty fuel line that caused the plane explosion, he manages to figure out the "order" in which the survivors will be reclaimed. Left with no alternative, the viewer is forced to believe such "rules" that keep popping up as cement to build a believable plotline out of a strand of shallow gimmicks clumsily tacked together. Truth is the key "premonition" scene, which is repeated in various forms in all of the sequels, is technically flawless, a lesson in tension-building thanks to awesome editing. Only trouble is the film goes downhill from there, thanks to increasingly lame plot twists, paramount of which is the exemplary bad ending.
The main flaw here is the total absence of a reason why the protagonist is allowed to foresee the accident, and save some characters but not others. Had he been saved by a "higher power", wouldn't it seem fair that this "higher power" have some kind of motive for such an intervention? Maybe we're expected to believe that this is merely the latest of God's elaborate pranks... At any rate, it seems pretty slippery to discuss the mechanisms of life and death so brazenly while dismissing all spiritual elements regarding fate and purpose. Personnally, I really wished there would've been some kind of lesson here. Hell, even Saw's dubious sense of morality had some relevance to the story. Here, every plot point is as superficial as can be, being a mere gimmick that fuels the story a few scenes. And every time the possibility of a grander scheme surfaces, it is swiftly drowned by the very narrow needs of the scenario. For one, I thought the funeral sequence held some special significance regarding the fate of the survivors. I felt it was the moment for those characters to ponder on the meaning of their existence and the incredible chance they have been given. It was a chance to include some meatier statement about life than "I'm freaked out to be alive." Instead of that, this scene functions merely as a half-assed segway toward the next scene wherein the first survivor dies. Later, when Kerr Smith's character decides to face death head-on as he drives on the wrong side of a one-way street, you'd expect some statement about individual volition in the face of fate. But no such reflexion ever comes to fruition as all the characters are mere cogwheels in a sick play whose conclusion is predetermined. And in the end, we discover that death is no different than a typical slasher, caught also in the web of teenage-oriented ineptitude dished out by lazy screenwriters out to make an easy buck. It's a shame too, because so many important spiritual issues are thus ignored, and what could have been a serious, adult film ultimately fails to tackle real issues that could've been relevant to real people, and so it remains a juvenile and superficial effort in body count horror.
Sexy Ali Larter, Devon Sawa and Kerr Smith stare death right in the face. 
To summarize things, Final Destination is ultimately just a lowbrow teenage slasher. The unique, intriguing premise and mythological implications about death are soon revealed for what they are: mere plot twists that offer surprise, but no catharsis. The result is very disappointing, not because the film is that bad, but because of how the filmmakers fail to follow through on the film's intriguing premise and its promise of grander, deeper dramatic implications. Of all the angles from which to adress the arduous, and quite necessary question of Death's design, they took the least interesting one, that of the cheap thriller. It's a real shame. And in the end, I will suggest you watch Part 2 instead, which is basically the same thing, but without the ridiculous pretension of being serious horror. And by the way, naming your characters after famous boogeymen and horror movie producers does nothing but prove that one can read theater marquees...
2/5 A unique and influential scenario is marred by unsatisfying plot twists and an overall lack of substance.
Did I find a solid basis for the series? No. I found instead an intriguing, but flawed offering that shares virtually all of the sequels' weaknesses, including a criminally poor "surprise" ending that ultimately defuses the whole thing and leaves the viewer totally unfulfilled. Interestingly enough, this ending is virtually identical to that of #4, which really makes you wonder how many Final Destination films were needed considering how unwilling the filmmakers working on those sequels were to update the under-developed premise of the original.
Uh-oh... We're toast!
As I said earlier, Final Destination is an intriguing but ultimately lazy film that fails to really capitalize on clever basic ideas. The opening sequence is simple and effective, showing us the inevitability of death through the perpetual motion of the fan in the protagonist's room. Then a smooth, albeit a little clumsy exposition scene introduces us to a classroom full of typical high schoolers boarding a plane headed for Paris. What the carefree youths ignore is that they are all supposed to die on that plane, according to "Death's design", which remains a hazy narrative device throughout the film. Fortunately, thanks to a highly dubious "out of body" experience through which the protagonist can foresee the tragedy, he manages to prevent a group of peers from boarding (and thus dying). But what he eventually comes to realize is that you cannot really cheat death, for the Reaper will necessarily come back to claim his due. When later exposed to a diagram showing the route of the faulty fuel line that caused the plane explosion, he manages to figure out the "order" in which the survivors will be reclaimed. Left with no alternative, the viewer is forced to believe such "rules" that keep popping up as cement to build a believable plotline out of a strand of shallow gimmicks clumsily tacked together. Truth is the key "premonition" scene, which is repeated in various forms in all of the sequels, is technically flawless, a lesson in tension-building thanks to awesome editing. Only trouble is the film goes downhill from there, thanks to increasingly lame plot twists, paramount of which is the exemplary bad ending.
The main flaw here is the total absence of a reason why the protagonist is allowed to foresee the accident, and save some characters but not others. Had he been saved by a "higher power", wouldn't it seem fair that this "higher power" have some kind of motive for such an intervention? Maybe we're expected to believe that this is merely the latest of God's elaborate pranks... At any rate, it seems pretty slippery to discuss the mechanisms of life and death so brazenly while dismissing all spiritual elements regarding fate and purpose. Personnally, I really wished there would've been some kind of lesson here. Hell, even Saw's dubious sense of morality had some relevance to the story. Here, every plot point is as superficial as can be, being a mere gimmick that fuels the story a few scenes. And every time the possibility of a grander scheme surfaces, it is swiftly drowned by the very narrow needs of the scenario. For one, I thought the funeral sequence held some special significance regarding the fate of the survivors. I felt it was the moment for those characters to ponder on the meaning of their existence and the incredible chance they have been given. It was a chance to include some meatier statement about life than "I'm freaked out to be alive." Instead of that, this scene functions merely as a half-assed segway toward the next scene wherein the first survivor dies. Later, when Kerr Smith's character decides to face death head-on as he drives on the wrong side of a one-way street, you'd expect some statement about individual volition in the face of fate. But no such reflexion ever comes to fruition as all the characters are mere cogwheels in a sick play whose conclusion is predetermined. And in the end, we discover that death is no different than a typical slasher, caught also in the web of teenage-oriented ineptitude dished out by lazy screenwriters out to make an easy buck. It's a shame too, because so many important spiritual issues are thus ignored, and what could have been a serious, adult film ultimately fails to tackle real issues that could've been relevant to real people, and so it remains a juvenile and superficial effort in body count horror.
Sexy Ali Larter, Devon Sawa and Kerr Smith stare death right in the face.
To summarize things, Final Destination is ultimately just a lowbrow teenage slasher. The unique, intriguing premise and mythological implications about death are soon revealed for what they are: mere plot twists that offer surprise, but no catharsis. The result is very disappointing, not because the film is that bad, but because of how the filmmakers fail to follow through on the film's intriguing premise and its promise of grander, deeper dramatic implications. Of all the angles from which to adress the arduous, and quite necessary question of Death's design, they took the least interesting one, that of the cheap thriller. It's a real shame. And in the end, I will suggest you watch Part 2 instead, which is basically the same thing, but without the ridiculous pretension of being serious horror. And by the way, naming your characters after famous boogeymen and horror movie producers does nothing but prove that one can read theater marquees...
2/5 A unique and influential scenario is marred by unsatisfying plot twists and an overall lack of substance.
