Devon Sawa in "Final Destination."

MOVIE INFORMATION

With 10 as a must-see, we give this film a: Stars: Devon Sawa and Ali Larter Director: James Wong Rated: R, with profanity, graphic violence and partial nudity Length: 100 minutes

ROCHESTERCRITIQUE

Having seen this film, how would you rate it? 10 5 9 4 8 3 7 2 6 1

By Marshall Fine
Gannett News Service

(Mar. 17, 2000) -- Death is a prankster in Final Destination, a horror film that casts the Grim Reaper as the Rube Goldberg of the dark side.

The gimmick in this film is that most of the deaths take place in seemingly safe environments: the bathroom, the kitchen, a city street in a Long Island suburb. Then wham! Without warning, the most innocuous everyday objects suddenly turn deadly, in domino-like chains of events that always have a lethal outcome.

Death is a real character, though one that (wisely) is never shown, in this debut feature from director James Wong, an X-Files alumnus. In the conceit set up by Wong and cowriter Glen Morgan (also ex-X), death has a plan for all of us and doesn't like it when his plans are changed.

The force for change is high-school senior Alex Browning (Devon Sawa), who is about to leave on a class trip to France for spring break. After boarding the plane, however, he has a vision: The plane takes off and then almost immediately explodes.

Awaking from the vision, he is so unnerved that he freaks out loudly and is removed from the plane in a melee that winds up including a total of five students and one teacher. All six are left behind as the plane leaves -- and are still in the boarding area arguing about what just happened when the plane they should have been on blows up.

The FBI immediately suspects Alex and everyone else is looking at him funny, too. When his fellow survivors being dying in mysterious circumstances as well, Alex has another vision (with the help of a spooky mortician, played insinuatingly by Tony Todd). Death, he realizes, feels as though it's been cheated of these six lives. So now it is circling back to reclaim them. And who can beat death?

Getting to those encounters (like one involving a bathtub clothesline that becomes an impromptu noose) takes way too much time. Wong and Morgan pack the dead spots with dialogue about the meaning of life and death, as interpreted by high school students. These discussions pad a film that is barely frightening, and not nearly as amusing as the filmmakers believe.

The inside jokes are numerous but faint. One character is named Val Lewton, also the name of a producer of 1940s' low-budget horror films such as Cat People. At one point, one of the survivors says to Alex, "I'm not into all that X-Files b.s.", a wink at the past of the film's creators.

In fact, the film is more like a callow version of The Twilight Zone, with such would-be teen faves as Sawa, Ali Larter and Kerr Smith of Dawson's Creek. They're young and capable and certainly up to this particular challenge, but mostly seem to be treading water until the next special effect.

Final Destination falls short on tension and plausibility, becoming laughable long after it should have taken you by the throat. This is a film that will reach its final destination -- the video store shelf -- quickly enough.