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I started a series called "RECAP" on YouTube where I recap and review movies, anime, tv shows and more. I'm going through the Final Destination series as the first movie franchise and it's been interesting going back and watching these films again after so many years.
I know they're older, but I'm interested in hearing other people's thoughts about them as well. I ended up enjoying Final Destination 1, even though the series gets derivative after a while.
In terms of a premise for a film, Final Destination was the first of its kind. It’s execution in discussing premonitions and death’s design is really well fleshed out. We get tons of disturbing, but amazing death scenes, and the rest of the franchise pretty much does the same. As we continue to take a look at the rest of the franchise though, we will start to notice that these things that made the movie unique, ended up creating a ton of clichés. This could be for better or for worse.
To say that Final Destination is a horror film is a bit of a stretch, though it definitely has a few moments where you can feel uneasy and the gore is very apparent when it’s main attraction is death. I would have to say though that this movie is more of a laugh fest at times than a horror film, of course, I myself tend to laugh at most horror films anyways, so some of that is just me.
The acting surprised me the most. When you think of a movie with teenagers in it, you’ll commonly think that it’s going to be a bad film and then together with the fact that this is a quote-on-quote horror film, the two don’t really mix. But this particular group of actors worked really well together and played each of their stereotypical parts without being overly dramatic. Devon Sawa and Ali Larter to be exact, the actors that played Alex and Clear, both showed emotional attachments to their part. Not to mention the fact, that Tony Todd as a coroner was practically the perfect casting.
The cinematography was really well done. Even though the foreshadowing was pushed in our face every few minutes, at least it was done with some really neat shots with tons of close ups. What made the deaths particularly interesting, was the fact that some of these close up shots didn’t have a thing to do with the actual death, so we actually had to guess what would end up being the final straw that broke the camel’s back.
James Wong, the director and lead screenwriter of the film did an excellent job with this one. You could say that that’s not too surprising, since he’s also worked on The X-Files series. But he also did Dragonball Evolution...
For a movie that’s now almost 18 years old, I must say, Final Destination is still worth watching. It’s ironically good at times and for the most part, it’s a pretty good film in general. I find myself enjoying it through and through. If you can get past the teenage stereotypes and the sometimes goofy and impossible deaths – this is the movie for you.