Being penned, produced and directed by the two men who, other than Chris Carter, are most responsible for the amazing success of The X-Files lends this film a degree of respectability it might not otherwise have attained. Glen Morgan and James Wong have indeed fashioned a film which is truly creepy and given it an original premise but as the film moves on the idea doesn't and by the end you feel that nothing has been explained and that the surviving characters are no safer than at the beginning. It's also uncomfortably close to the superior The Frighteners in my opinion, especially in the style of the Grim Reaper character.
It starts off with a school party of French-class students awaiting boarding to Paris for a week's holiday. Everything seems perfectly normal except to Alex Browning (Sawa) who keeps on seeing bizarre coincidences all around him. His seat number and the time of departure are exactly the same as his birthday; John Denver (who also died in a plane crash) is being played in the toilets and all this builds up to a terrifying dream in which he sees the plane explode in graphic detail. When the train of events he dreamed about begin to come true he freaks out and he and 6 others in his group are ejected. While they sit there bitching at each other the plane slowly rises from the ground and explodes in an intense fireball. From this point on reality becomes twisted and Browning, who seems to have the power of foresight, is their only hope of saviour.
I have to admit that the first half-hour really was creepy and the build-up to the explosion (which everyone was told about prior to watching) was an exercise in tension. However, when the survivors start being picked off one by one the films 'realism' quickly falls apart and some of the deaths had me laughing out loud they were so silly and obvious. The Grim Reaper's power, though impressive, was also quite inconsistent and I found it hard to believe that even he could engineer so precisely some of the executions. No explanation was tendered for why Browning has his power or when he got it, not to mention why Death would be after them for cheating him because, frankly, did they? Tony Todd, who could have been used as an anchorman, is wasted and you can't help but feel disappointed at the end for the complete lack of any kind of conclusion.
Sawa is quite good in the lead role and has the ubiquitous teen support in Kerr Smith (Dawson's Creek), Seann William Scott (American Pie, Road Trip) and Ali Larter (Varsity Blues). Smith is utterly unbelievable due to the massive change in character from Dawson's to this and just seemed to be unnecessarily an arsehole. Scott is whiny but as usual very funny and Ali Larter just reminded me too much of Ally Sheedy from The Breakfast Club in both looks and performance. They do work well together however and are surely set for bigger things, appearing in an above average teen slasher flick which isn't Scream should do wonders. |
