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by Blender Dumbass

Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".

There is this hype wave over the Final Destination franchise because of a new movie that was released in the series. At first I resisted it, but then I saw a few shots from the opening of the first film, directed by James Wong and thought that it was actually something good, that at least worth my attention.

I was surprised by how good this actually was. Rotten Tomatoes 49% score doesn't give the film justice. It is not that bad. Or at least the critics that gave this score didn't get the vibes of the film.

I mean yeah, the film is kind of low budget ( in terms of Hollywood standards ) and it shows. Like the airport kind of looks like a set. The plane feels like another set. It all feels a bit TV-showy. Probably because the script was originally written for a TV show.

But James Wong does everything he can to make it very good. For example the opening sequence has this unsettling vibe with very good editing by James Coblentz. Some of the cuts are just super-well timed. There is this thunder that made me jump. It's good stuff.

Then the movie goes into a kind of Spielberg mode for a bit. You have the sub-urban house and weird things happen in it. Like the stuff that happens in Close Encounters or something. The wind comes in and it moves things. The camera follows the wind in an elegant ballet. Good stuff! You don't know what you are looking at. This is a mystery. But there it is. This something, it does things. Things react to it. Even if it is just a wind.

James Wong goes on and makes use of reflections ( a technique famously used by Spielberg ) to tell story, to do foreshadowing, to visualize the super-natural. Like the various shots of busses in the windows. Or the shot of a reflection of a train.

Do I have a problem with actors in this film? Kind of. It feels like they did the best job that they could have done. But some of it feels a bit raw. You know like as if those actors didn't have much experience with acting, but still killed the roles. Giving those slightly strange performances. They are good, but I feel like some critics would perceive them as bad. I would not call them Oscar-worthy. Does that make sense.

Tony Todd ( rest in piece ) is in it, making an interesting kind of unsettling appearance. Playing a psychopathic character that does an exposition dump. I guess this character returns is subsequent films. I didn't see any of them yet. I don't know.

The best of the main protagonists are obviously Ali Larter who plays this shy girl, which honestly made me want to cry, by how she can subtly portray depression. And then Devon Sawa who played the main character Alex ( who arguably did overact in some shots ) is still very good at doing this paranoid thing that he did. Especially in the cabin in the woods scene with all the sweat and stuff, as he tries to outsmart death.

Chad Donella who plays Tod was a bit strange. He felt uncanny for most of the film. But then he gave his speech at school and it hit me really hard. This guy pulled of something magical.

In any care, this was a surprisingly good movie. And you should definitely watch it.

Happy Hacking!!!


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