Film offers big scare, bad script

Over the past few years, horror movies have taken every twist and angle to try to scare up a new audience. Although it sounds desperate, the films' attempts have been successful. Movies like Scream, The Sixth Sense and The Blair Witch Project have opened the horror market back to a thundering teen audience.

With all this success, everyone is trying for a piece of the pie, and the new film, Final Destination, took its stab at the business on the first day of Spring Break.

This horror flick is hardly in the category of these groundbreaking films. Final Destination combines a great scare with a corny, horribly written script.

It is ironic that a film such as this can be so obnoxiously written and still have the ability to put up some great horror scenes. Writers Jeffery Reddick, Glen Morgan and James Wong must be bowing their heads to the saving grace of producers Warren Zide, Craig Perry and Glen Morgan and director James Wong (at least Morgan had the chance to also be on the positive side).

The story begins with Alex (Devon Sawa), who is on his way with his entire French class to Paris. The focus of the opening is Alex's premonition of the plane flight.

As the story progresses, Alex is seated on the plane and has a horrible dream of the plane crashing. He is then escorted off the plane with some other classmates due to a scuffle with security. As the plane takes off, his dream comes true. It is now up to Alex and his friends to escape death as it comes after them seeking revenge, or as it is better stated in the movie, "fixing the order of things."

Sawa does exceptional acting as he struggles to find the meaning of death and how he can prevent it. His co-stars, Chad E. Donella, Ali Larter (The Faculty), Kerr Smith (Dawson's Creek), Amanda Detmer, Kristen Cloke and Seann William Scott (American Pie), are a positive supporting cast. Larter comes out on top with her role as the strange but sincere girl who believes in Alex. The disappointing character is Scott, who will always be known as Stifler from American Pie, and who acts like a two-year-old, which is partly due to the script.

Despite the film's bland overcast of corny script writing, Final Destination has its moments. It has some flashy special effects and can be downright scary in some parts. The suspense and horror are the saving grace for the film and are definitely what make Final Destination acceptable but not great.