By: Cameron Tyo
April 6th, 2025
Warning: There will be what some people consider major spoilers for the movie Final Destination
I have never watched a Final Destination movie in my whole life. I’ve only seen glimpses of some of the outrageous deaths that happen. Still, after recently seeing the trailer for Final Destination: Bloodlines and tons of clips from TikTok from all movies that started appearing in my for-you feed for seemingly no reason, I have gotten intrigued about what the series is about. That is why I wanted to start watching the series. This week, I’ll watch and review the first Final Destination movie released in 2000, and on the following Sunday, I will review another one until all five movies are done being watched. That’ll give me a week to recollect what happens in each movie and be prepared to watch Bloodlines.
Final Destination starts with a school group getting prepared to fly from the U.S. to Paris for a trip. While aboard Flight 180, Alex Browning (Devon Sawa) ends up getting a premonition where he is able to perceive a plane explosion, causing all the deaths of the passengers and crew on board. Frantically, Alex makes a commotion on the plane, getting him and a few others kicked off the plane, with a couple following them out. The plane then explodes, and from that point forward, the events of Final Destination move along.
There is not much plot to the movie at all, and from what I’ve seen on social media, I didn’t expect one, and I expect to see a similar formula to what the first movie came up with, based on the high box office rating the movie made. The film focuses on Alex, who has to deal with not only losing friends but convincing others that he is not crazy and the FBI that he isn’t responsible for any of the deaths that happened following the plane explosion. This FBI conflict causes a cat-and-mouse chase between him and two agents, which spurs a lot of Alex’s actions in the movie.
While the deaths of the one who escaped the plane occur, Alex, with the help of Clear Rivers (Ali Larter), tries to find out why things are happening the way they are. They are clued into a pattern and the idea that the design that death made in killing everyone on flight 180 was put on pause by Alex, and that it has come back to finish doing its job, ensuring the ones meant to die escaped by mortician William Bludsworth (Tony Todd).
The deaths in the movie weren’t the grandest, at least from what I’ve seen in what I assume to be the sequels on social media, but I think the ways in which the deaths are orchestrated are clever enough for it being the first time this scenario was brought up and done. So many deaths came out of nowhere, such as Terry Chaney (Amanda Detmer) getting hit by a bus or Billy Hitchcock (Seann William Scott) getting decapitated by a metal shard that was stuck under the rails of a track until a train came and pushed it upwards. Some deaths were drawn out, such as the very first. Tod Waggner (Chad Donella). As well as teacher Valerie Lewton (Kristen Cloke).
In Tod’s death, once he slips onto a liquid that seeps from the toilet and gets hanged by the clothesline, which he eventually suffocates, the camera shows the liquid seeping back into the toilet in an unnatural manner. It represented to me the idea that death, coming back to get the victims it missed, is supernatural. For Valerie’s death, the camera panned over every single thing that could have been the catalyst for her death. Ultimately, everything planned out is involved in the chain reaction that leads to her death, and it was my favorite in the movie. I won’t spoil it, though, for you to enjoy.
When it comes to the characters, the film, for the most part, felt tropey. You had the main character’s best friend, Tod, who would eventually detach from Alex after circumstances related to the plane explosion, the comedic and over-the-top but even still innocent bike-riding and whoppers-enjoying character of Billy, the asshole character Carter Horton (Kerr Smith), and the mysterious final girl that eventually befriends the main character to complete a quest of sorts Clear. However, keeping in mind that the script’s dialogue and story probably weren’t the main thing focused on when the movie was being directed, I thought the actors did a good enough job portraying these characters and contributed to the suspenseful and infrequent sad scenes there. Heck, I even jived with Clear through lots of the movie.
The end of the movie was left ambiguous, and many wouldn’t like that, but. I feel that the “death coming back for those that escape”concept as a whole is ambiguous; there isn’t a great way to end the movie on a satisfying note.
Obviously, this was the first movie in the series, but I can see why the movie and the concept of it as a whole became a classic and led to four, soon-to-be five more sequels. I assume this has a much shallower plot than other films. Character development wasn’t focused on too much. We only have standard relationships among people, like buddy-to-buddy, buddy-to-rival, most of the time. We did get a brief bit of backstory on characters like Tod and Clear, but that’s it. Despite this, the imaginative skills seen in the movie show promise, and I didn’t hate the movie. It was enjoyable enough for me to decide to watch the second movie and see how that improved, assuming it does.
As I watch the movies, I’ve decided to rank them from least favorite to most favorite. Being the first movie of the series I watched, it goes:
1. Final Destination