Review by Leonard Norwitz
Studio:
Theatrical: New Line: A Zide/Perry Production
Blu-ray: New Line Home Entertainment (Canadian)
Disc:
Region: FREE!
Runtime: 1:38:02.001
Disc Size: 22,784,227,764 bytes
Feature Size: 20,306,337,792 bytes
Average Bitrate: 27.62 Mbps
Chapters: 20
Case: Standard Blu-ray case
Release date: April 7th, 2009
Video:
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Resolution: 1080p
Video codec: VC-1 Video
Audio:
Dolby TrueHD Audio English 1644 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1644
kbps / 16-bit (AC3 Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps)
Dolby Digital Audio English 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio English 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio English 192 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 192 kbps
/ Dolby Surround
Dolby Digital Audio English 192 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 192 kbps
/ Dolby Surround
Subtitles:
English SDH, Spanish & German
Extras:
• Filmmaker's Commentary: Director, Producer, Writers,
Editor
• Actor's Commentary: Sawa, Smith, Cloke, Danella
• Isolated Film Score with Commentary by Composer Shirley
Walker
• Documentary: The Perfect Soufflé: Testing Final
Destination (13:25)
• Documentary: Premonitions (19:40)
• Deleted Scenes & Alternate Ending (8:15)
The Film:
The question that writers James Wong and Glen Morgan ask in
apparent innocence and seriousness is this: Is there a plan
to our lives, specifically in regards our time line? If we
choose this or that action, no matter how seemingly
innocent, does it not have a consequential effect on that
time line? The answer, of course, is yes. But that still
leaves the other question: Is there a plan, and if so, is it
something we can alter deliberately? Final Destination, a
cleverly grisly title when you think about it, keeps the
discussion in terms that your average high schooler might
address it. Free Will and Fatalism, on the other hand, are
not concepts that flow trippingly off the brain stem. What
does flow are some pretty good special effects and sharp
editing, creating suspenseful tension that succeeds in its
intent to keep us searching the frame for where the next
catastrophe will come from – the first time through, anyhow.
The Movie: 7
Young Alex Browning (Devon Sawa) is all geared up to join
some forty other classmates for his high school sponsored
holiday in Paris. Wow! Problem is that Alex has visions,
waking dreams, premonitions of disaster that become all the
more intense just after boarding the plane. Next thing you
know he's Charles Grodin in Midnight Run, hysterically
screaming that the plane is headed for a fall. A fight
breaks out with his chronic nemesis, Carter Horton (Kerr
Smith) and both kids are escorted off the plane along with a
few of their buddies and a teacher or two.
Minutes later the plane fulfils its destiny, but instead of
seeing Alex as a savior, everyone thinks of him as a freak
and a pariah. Everyone except Clear Rivers (Ali Larter), who
hardly knows Alex yet feels a psychic connection. FBI agents
Weine & Schreck (Daniel Robuck & Roger Guenveur Smith), who
seem to be in this movie for comic effect (just look at
those names), dog Alex's heels as one after the other of the
survivors are dispatched, and rather unpleasantly at that.
Is Alex the culprit, or does Death have a design?
Image:
5/7
NOTE:
The below
Blu-ray
captures were ripped directly from the
Blu-ray
disc.
The first number indicates a relative level of excellence
compared to other Blu-ray video discs on a ten-point scale.
The second number places this image along the full range of
DVD and Blu-ray discs.
While there is the occasional moment of clarity (as when the
lighting is just right), for the most part the image here is
soft and fuzzy – by which I do not mean comfortable and
reassuring, but rather: lacking resolution. If the problem
were only in its being grainy
-
alas, not. The picture seems to be hanging on for dear life,
which is not all that apparent in the caps. This is
especially true in darker scenes where a kind of vague noise
makes it difficult to see into the shadows. Edge enhancement
is visible at times but is not nearly as troublesome as the
foggy filters. Bit rates hover around the mid-20s.
By the way, I included an amusing pair of caps just before
and after the airport terminal window disintegrates from the
blast of the plane. Note the fellow in the first frame in
the center behind the row of chairs. He's doing a North by
Northwest anticipating the crash of glass by starting to
duck before his cue.
CLICK EACH
BLU-RAY
CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION
Audio & Music:
6/8
The audio mix, though lacking the crispness or dynamic whack
of the best horror flics is acceptable enough. Dialogue is
clearly placed in the front, the music opens things up a
bit, as do the effects, though the latter does not always
locate events in the surround as neatly as hoped (I'm
thinking of the on-board airplane catastrophe), on the other
hand some of the more at home intimate scaries have us
looking left, right, up down and across. I should add that
the idea and execution of the explosion of the plane seen
and heard from a distance is only one of several very nice
touches of horror this movie holds for us.
Operations:
7
I have not been able to duplicate the problem I was having
initially accessing a scene from the chapters menu, but
aside from that glitch, I liked the amount of descriptive
summary for each of the special features.
Extras:
7
This little B-picture sports not one, but three
commentaries, all of them worth your time for different
reasons. Perhaps the most unlikely is the Isolated Film
Score with commentary by composer Shirley Walker, which is
really listing the matter in reverse order of importance,
since Ms. Walker's comments are continuous and informative
about the compositional process. She pauses herself allowing
for full rendering of the cues which, heard in this format,
tell us how talented this woman is. The actors' commentary
is a roundtable reminiscence full of good humor. The
filmmakers' commentary is about what you'd expect, except
that there is the occasional uncensored remark about
comparisons to how similar movies are directed. The Perfect
Soufflé is the kind of featurette I don't recall seeing
before – and it's a good one: a candid examination of how
movies are road tested in front of likely audiences – or
not, and what decisions might be made about content given
their comments. This dovetails nicely into the Deleted
Scenes & Alternate Ending – and we can see why. Premonitions
is a documentary narrated by Pam Coronado, who not only has,
but investigates paranormal experiences.
Bottom line:
7
OK, It's silly and far fetched... but there's something
engaging about this movie. Perhaps it's simply the
attraction of the idea that we can influence our final
destiny. The director has a canny way, both mathematically
and graphically, of insisting we search for how death will
come for us. And it's nice that there are a couple of kids
that aren't a complete waste of brain space. The audio is
decent; the extra features very good. Too bad about the less
than satisfactory image.
Leonard Norwitz
April 16th, 2009