Famed movie critic Roger Ebert was a big fan of the first Final Destination movie and even discussed that film and other slasher movies on an entertaining featurette on the DVD of Final Destination 3, the precursor to this movie. Ebert coined the phrase “dead teenager movie” to describe slasher flicks, and the Final Destination movies more or less stick to that formula, except that in The Final Destination, people of any age can die at any time. The Final Destination is extremely short (barely 80 minutes before the end credits roll) and is punchy and gory, it gives the fans exactly what they want. A bigger budget gives the climatic finale some real zip and a scene on an escalator is genuinely cool and exciting.

The plot is simplicity itself. The formula has been replicated and cloned to perfection by now. The movie starts with a big disaster scene avoided by a teen or young adult. He has a premonition and him and a group of friends (and strangers) leave said disaster before meeting their maker. Death gets pissed off, and comes after them one by one. The chain-reaction death scenes are both fun and generally inventive and the movie has a nice nasty streak going during a few of the death scenes. One racist character is killed off to the classic song “why can’t we be friends”, which is the sort of clever irony that the series has going for it in its better moments. Another good scene involves a vapid soccer Mom in a salon full of sharp and potentially deadly objects and is is also a lot of fun. The DVD itself has a 3D version with two pairs of cardboard glasses, and while the 3D “works”, the colors are washed out and the glasses are annoying to wear. The DVD is a flip disc and one side is 3D while the other is the normal 2D format, the preferred way to watch the movie. The only extra on the standard DVD release are some deleted scenes, the blu ray DVD has a whole slew of extras not on the standard-def DVD.

Fans who made The Final Destination a big international hit will want to pick up the DVD. If you have a blu-ray player, get that version instead, because the extras are a lot better. The 3D looks pretty bad and nowhere near as cool as it did when The Final Destination played in theatres in 3D, but the film itself is above-average and a lot of fun. The Final Destination is a clever cut above most slasher films and comes recommended to fans and newbies alike.

DVD Grade: B

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