Among many episodes of The X-Files some of the better ones were written by Glen Morgan and James Wong and many x-philes think that the show’s quality declined because of their departure. The duo left show, among other things, to pursue their own projects, like the short-lived science fiction series Space: Above and Beyond, but they are better known for creating horror franchise which started by Final Destination, 2000 film directed by James Wong.
Protagonist is Alex Browning (played by Devon Sawa), New York high school student who is about to fly to Paris on ten-day trip together with 40 other students. And while most of his schoolmates are looking forward to sex, drugs and other fun that awaits in European capital, he is becoming increasingly anxious as the departure from airport becomes clear. While sitting in a Boeing 747 before the take off, he experiences increasingly disturbing and realistic vision of him and his friends dying in horrible plane crash. He becomes so agitated that he is thrown out of the plane and in the resulting confusion few more students and Valerie Lewton (played by Kristen Cloke), one of the teachers, are also thrown out. Before they are able to grasp what really happened, the plane, shortly after take off, explodes killing everyone on board. Alex is now forced to answer all kinds of unpleasant questions he doesn’t have answer for, but FBI investigation is just a beginning of his problems. Few weeks after the crash all of his surviving friends start to die one by one in spectacular and bizarre circumstances. Alex slowly realises that his vision managed to cheat Death, which now comes back to claim his and his friends’ lives. Alex must figure out in which order he and his classmates were supposed to die and thus find the way to cheat Death again.
Final Destination has originally developed as a script for a The X-Files episode. Many x-philes would probably feel little bit nostalgia after watching this film, which uses the same Vancouver locations that helped the create distinctive atmosphere of the show in its early seasons, as well as seeing some familiar faces in the cast, like Robert Wisden and Tony Todd (who plays sinister mortician William Bludworth). On the other hand, some x-philes won’t like the fact that the script was inspired by the real life crash of TWA Flight 800 which happened few years earlier and served as inspiration for The X-Files episode “Tempus Fugit”, one of the less popular in the series. Script by Morgan, Wong and Jeffrey Reddick, however, uses the motive of catastrophic crash as an inspiration for completely different kind of story. Protagonists are teenagers, just like in so many Hollywood films that tried to resurrect slasher genre in late 1990s and early 2000s, but unlike slasher films here they have to deal with something much more dangerous and terrifying than a single maniac. Here they have to face opponent which is more natural, but more powerful and whose victory is ultimately inevitable. This fills Final Destination with the atmosphere of inescapable doom and some of the characters’ dialogues sound very much like the treaties on existential philosophy. Wong as director does decent job, especially in the scenes that feature ingenious ways in which various characters die and that often feature black humour. Unfortunately, mostly young cast isn’t exactly up to the task. This is partly due to the protagonists being one-dimensional and unlikeable, so the audience after a while stops caring about their ultimate fate. As the ending approaches, cliches become more predictable and annoying. Final Destination was greeted poorly by critics, but the public had different ideas. Film became big hit and spawned four sequels.
RATING: 4/10 (+)
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