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Year:   2000
Studio: New Line Cinema
Movie:  3/5
DVD:    4/5

Movie

Final Destination is a horror movie high on the suspense and low on the gore. The main premise is that a group of people cheat Death but now Death is after them. What I liked about this film is that is that Death is nothing if not elaborate and imaginative. For some deaths, circumstances are arranged just right to kill the victim. At other times death is quite sudden, though even then there is some kind of warning. In the end, the movie is about trying to discover the rules that will allow the survivors to stop the cycle of death.

Actors

Kirsten Cloke is hot and I still remember her playing Shane Vansen in Space: Above and Beyond. Sean William Scott plays yet another goofball character. Tony Todd plays a creepy mortician. I remember him from Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and he's been in a lot of television shows.

DVD

The DVD is packed full of material. There are three commentary tracks: one with director James Wong, writers Glen Morgan and Jeffrey Reddick, and editor James Coblentz; one with actors Devon Sawa, Kerr Smith, Kristen Cloke, and Chad Donella; and one with composer Shirley Walker and an isolated musical score.

There are two deleted scenes: an "alternate" sex scene which I didn't see any difference (the sex scene was cut out but the alternate scene doesn't show it) and the original ending which is dramatically different than the released version. The released ending is much better because the original ending sort of dragged on.

A 10-minute featurette on the testing process is sort of interesting. The 13-minute premonitions documentary just seemed out of place. It was basically an interview with a woman who sees and feels things, but it barely relates to the movie so I don't know why it was included.

No cast and crew bios but the threatrical trailer is also included. I almost forgot, there are two lame games. One is a life expectancy test. The other is a psychic test. Cool thing is that they're both part of the DVD and not in a DVD-ROM section.

Recommendations

Final Destination is an ok movie. Unfortunately there were a lot of these teen horror movies released at about the same timeframe so it didn't do well in the box office. If you liked those other movies you should like this one but if you think you've seen enough of them you should avoid this movie.
Copyright (c) 2004 Kevin C. Wong
Page Created: January 29, 2004
Page Last Updated: January 29, 2004