Another teen horror flick in the wake of "Scream 3" written by the guys who put the creepy in the X-Files. Sounds like a wild ride or is it? The story centers around a group of teens who survive an airliner explosion through a bizarre incident. After the crash, one teen (Devon Sawa) becomes completely convinced that the Grim Reaper is after him and he is hunting the group in the way they should have died in the explosion.

Producer, co-screenwriter, and director James Wong re-teams with his partner Glen Morgan for a stab at the silver screen. Morgan and Wong's greatest exploit has to have been the couple seasons of the X-Files where it became the staple for TV suspense and to this day the series is still trying to recapture. They have continue to dabble in TV with such series as the little seen but at times brilliant "Space: Above and Beyond" and NBC's recent hit "The Others". But with the debut of "Final Destination it's the team's first real venture onto the silver screen.

Destination starts off with a great opening 20 minutes where we are shocked and dumbfounded by the opening plot. I haven't seen that thrilling of a plane disaster scene since 1993's "Alive". Wow, what a scene. And as the film moves along a lot of the scenes are shocking and keep you on your toes. But it's the latter half of the film that bugged me. The time I am talking about is just when ex-Hollywood sex symbol Ali Larter's hair starts to get blonder. Ever notice that in Hollywood films they always dumb down the leading lady until she is supposed to catch the hero's eye? It's at that point that Sawa's avoidance of the Grim Reaper get really hokey. That cabin scene is a perfect example. Every movie like this needs a supernatural ending and the finale here is gimmickry and unrealistic. If you love the humor-horror trilogy of "Scream" like so many million people then Destination has all that to offer but watch out for a couple goofy things along the way. I guess other "Scream" clone "I Know What You Did this Summer" and especially its sequel got this back lash too.

The young people out there will love this, I am sure.

(3 of 5) So Says the Soothsayer.

The end of senior year is coming and to celebrate it Alex Browning and company are going on a class trip to france. Flight 180 is scheduled to leave JFK airport for Paris, France...it never gets there. Shortly before take-off Alex has a stunningly realistic vision, the plane's going to crash and everybody's going to die. Needless to say he abruptly, for lack of a better word, freaks out. He and six other people who were caught up in the scuffle were escorted off the plan...in time to see it blow up from the airport terminal. All seems well until Death tries to reclaim its lost victims.

Plot: A nice breath of originality, this film does away with the psycho slasher character commonly found in the teenage horror genre and replaces it with an absolute evil everyone can relate to...Death. The script to this film is written by Glen Morgan, James Wong, and Jeffrey Riddick, a group of men whose work has been limited to the small screen of television. By doing away with the slasher character the writers' work can't be directly compared with other films in the same genre. Also by eliminating the slasher character and replacing it with Death the antagonist is no longer limited by human abilities and thus puts the characters into brand-new situations. ****1/2(out of five)

Acting: The mass majority of Final Destination's cast are horror genre veterans and their experience pays off on screen. Actor Devon Sawa (Alex Browning) is relatively new to the genre, having entered it with 1999's Idle Hands, yet still leads the cast with the flair of a seasoned veteran. For a horror film, Final Destination has some of the finest acting this side of Scream, but for a major motion picture the acting is only slightly above mediocre. ***1/2(out of five)

Directing: James Wong's directing credits only include the TV show "The X Files", Final Destination is his first foray into the realm of filmmaking. Unlike the traditional horror director who tries to keep every death a surprise, Wong makes it perfectly clear who is going next and in some twisted way Wong's method of filmmaking is more suspenseful. The one thing that proved Wong knew what he was doing was the whole airplane crash sequence. This sequence rivals the one in Fight Club in realism and technical perfection. Wong definitely has a future in this business. ****1/2(out of five)

Music: The music in this film is no more original than any other horror film. Composer Shirley Walker provides the audience with nothing new, nothing original, and nothing memorable. The score that is in the film fits the movies tone, but there was no recurring motif that was easy to detect. Overall the music this film was obvious churned out just to make a few bucks. ***(out of five)

Special Effects: The most important special effects component to a horror film is makeup. If the blood doesn't look real the effect is lost...well, actually that's not true, but the fact still remains that the make-up artist is an essential component to the horror film. Lisa Love's, key makeup artist, past horror film work includes only 1998's Disturbing Behavior. Fortunately her little amount of experience doesn't affect the quality of the gore. The only problem is the film doesn't call for any exotic deaths and hence doesn't call for any original makeup work. Because of this Love's work comes across as mediocre. ***(out of five)

Bottom Line: Final Destination is a welcome change to the recent outpouring of Scream wanna-bees. Which in it of itself is sort of ironic, Scream was supposed to be the big change to the genre, then everyone just made scream clones. Well, that's the way the cookie crumbles. One final note for Final Destination, keep your eye on the road, it may get squishy (If you see the film it will make sense...I promise). **** (out of five)