The Final Destination Review
Posted by Joseph Lee on 08.30.2009
The ads said that death saved the best for 3D. Really, death? That was your best?
Starring:
*Bobby Campo as Nick
*Shantel VanSanten as Lori
*Nick Zano as Hunt
*Haley Webb as Janet
*Mykelti Williamson as George
Story: A young man sees a vision of he and his friends dying at a race track. They escape, only to discover Death is hunting them down one by one.
Trivia: The 3D gimmick was originally planned for Final Destination 3.
It's a common complaint with horror franchises (and other long-standing franchises, really) to attack sequels for their lack of originality or for feeling like a retread of previous films. The recent remake of Friday the 13th was called out for the same thing, so has the later entries in the Saw series. In most cases, I would find this a silly complaint because that's the point of slashers. Stupid teenagers get killed in violent ways to the delight of the crowd. What exactly should you expect?
However, in the case of The Final Destination, those complaints ring true. It feels more like a "greatest hits" compilation of the entire franchise than it's own stand-alone movie. It would be stupid to complain about the lack of originality in story, because most slashers are about the killing. The Final Destination series just took away the pretense by removing the typical villain and making Death itself a faceless force with a vendetta against anyone who cheats it. It's not about the acting, or story or meaningful relationships between characters. These films were designed with one selling point in mind, and one only: the violent and grisly death of unwitting teenagers and young adults.
Unfortunately, it's this exact selling point that the movie fails to live up to and deliver it's promise of it being the "best" of the series. If anything, it's a "best of", as many of the kills here are copycats of earlier kills in the series. Someone gets run over by a vehicle. Someone else gets impaled. Yet another person gets decapitated. Sure, a few of them are retooled a bit to appear original, but it's really just a variation on something we've already seen before. When the entire point of your film is to feature new and inventive kills and you fail to deliver on that, then your film is already flawed from the outset.
That's not to say the entire movie isn't fun. This movie manages to give us not one, but two giant massacres. The first is the race track scene in the first fifteen minutes, and the other will be kept as a surprise. The race track scene is the big one shown in the trailer and it doesn't fail to deliver. The most fun and delightfully gory kills are featured here, and honestly it almost feels like the film climaxed too early as it gets rid of all the good stuff before the opening credits (which, by the way, are an homage to the kills of the previous films, using x-rays and skeletons).
As far as the other kills go, while the escalator scene is particularly nasty and there is some grisly bloodletting to be had, they're mostly retreads. At only seventy-five minutes, and featuring a death at roughly every ten, you would think the people behind the film would shake things up with the very reason that audiences will be flocking to theaters this weekend to see The Final Destination. I guess impalement and things exploding makes for a better 3D film.
While I enjoyed the gore and the nods to the other films in the series, I found this entry to be boring. Instead of entertaining me for the short period of time it had to, it made me long for the days of Devon Sawa forcing people to get off the plane in Final Destination or the greatest car crash ever in Final Destination 2. The less said about Final Destination 3, the better.
The 411: The Final Destination isn't as bad as Final Destination 3, but it doesn't break any new ground and feels tired and familiar. Normally this wouldn't be a reasonable complaint, but here even the selling point of the creative kills is lackadaisical and half-hearted. Running at only a scant seventy-five minutes, it's not the worst way to spend your money, but you should probably look elsewhere if you want more bang for your buck.
The movie ruined the mythos of the entire series. You see death and escape it, and he coems after the people he escaped. Death doesn't massacre a bunch of people to get one person, he assasinates the target for escaping his original design. The writers dropped the ball on this one.
Posted By: Guest#1971 (Guest) on August 30, 2009 at 02:03 AM
Just a tip: check your grammar before posting these reviews. You consistently use "it's" instead of "its" and it unfortunately detracts from your overall credibility as a critic.
Posted By: Kdubzz (Guest) on August 30, 2009 at 04:04 AM
What's wrong with the third one? You complain about the lack of original kills in this, yet slate the third film which had the girls getting trapped in sunbeds, the workout freak who got his head squashed, and the chick with the nails in her face. That kind of defeats your argument on so many levels I can't begin to list them.
bj
Posted By: Bimmy (Guest) on August 30, 2009 at 06:39 AM
I thought it was pretty damn nasty. I must say that the best thing I saw was actually a 3D preview for the new Christmas Carol movie. It looked wonderful and I can't wait to see it. It was really odd to see all these gore fans going "ooooooh!" and "aaaaaah!" for an animated movie.
Posted By: The Great Capt. Smooth (Guest) on August 30, 2009 at 09:26 AM
The movie ruined the mythos of the entire series. You see death and escape it, and he coems after the people he escaped. Death doesn't massacre a bunch of people to get one person, he assasinates the target for escaping his original design. The writers dropped the ball on this one.
Posted By: Guest#1971 (Guest) on August 30, 2009 at 02:03 AM
That was the problem with the 3rd.
Posted By: The Dutch (Guest) on August 30, 2009 at 09:35 AM
I've never been a fan of these movies as they never explain just how all of these people seem to have the same ability to see Death's plan and how they portray Death as some sadistic lunatic villain only interested in offing people in the most violent manner available.
Posted By: His Bubbliness (Guest) on August 30, 2009 at 10:11 AM
How about pointing out where your problem where the 'it's' are b/c I read it twice and found everything to be fine except for one "it's." If you meant this line:
"that the movie fails to live up to and deliver it's promise of it being the "best" of the series."
Then you spent your time bitching about one little mistake in a well written review. Get over it.
That being said I'll probably see this as many times as I saw the other "Final Destination" films.
Never.
Posted By: Peter (Guest) on August 30, 2009 at 10:45 AM
Kdubzz, shut the hell up. that was one of the dumbest comments i read. this isn't the new york times, its just a review written by some dude, seriously, get over it just cause he used it's. we're not in school, you cunt
Posted By: Kal (Guest) on August 30, 2009 at 11:55 AM
My problem with the 3rd one was the characters. In those movies, you're supposed to root for them to live but I hated them and couldn't wait to see them die. The main character was one the worst and she made it til the end. That and the hints bad. Aside from the tanning girls, the pictures were horribly vague.
Posted By: Jaime (Guest) on August 30, 2009 at 11:56 AM
The commercials made me think this was actually was a comedy movie.
Nuff said?
Posted By: Big Lantern Ghost (Guest) on August 30, 2009 at 01:23 PM
I may only be saying this because I'm a HUGE fan of Final Destination, but I found this new installment of the series to be quite exhilarating. I found myself on the edge of my seat during the majority of the movie, and even had a few laughs. The thing about this movie, is that there doesn't really have to be a great story to make a a lot of money, but at least a few new decent deaths, which I actually found to be innovative in particular to the first three films.
Honestly, I couldn't think of any way to improve their film besides the ending with the "x-ray skeletons".
But all this is my opinion. I Love and enjoy Final Destination!
Posted By: Victor (Guest) on August 30, 2009 at 01:44 PM
Agree with this review. Went go see it with some friends who are FD fans. They were all "OMG this is gonna be so awesome!" I could care less.
It was okay for what it aimed to be. Some of the kills were kinda lame. If it didn't have the 3d glasses gimmick (and I have to admit some of the scenes were badass in 3d) it would be even more meh.
Posted By: lilwayne1 (Guest) on August 30, 2009 at 01:57 PM
I guess Final Destination 3 was that final in the end. I haven't seen the new Final Destination but for me the best character in the entire series was Ali Larter's character in Final destination 1 and 2
Posted By: Absolutus (Guest) on August 30, 2009 at 02:57 PM
First of all Final Destination 3 wasnt bad at all. In fact it was better than the crap that was FD2. Why cant people go to these movies and enjoy them? Why must you sit there and over analyze everything ruining the enjoyment of it
Posted By: Guest#5700 (Guest) on August 30, 2009 at 07:25 PM
They fucked up the entire mythos with the third one. The plane crash in the first movie had a ripple effect that caused the ENTIRE second movie, they could've built an entire franchise around that concept. And how the fuck did the accident in the third movie even happen if the guy that caused it got off the roller coaster?
Posted By: Guest#7048 (Guest) on August 30, 2009 at 07:57 PM
This movie was a waste, it sucked on so many levels.
Posted By: Daniel (Guest) on August 30, 2009 at 09:33 PM
"Kdubzz, shut the hell up. that was one of the dumbest comments i read. this isn't the new york times, its just a review written by some dude, seriously, get over it just cause he used it's. we're not in school, you cunt
Posted By: Kal (Guest) on August 30, 2009 at 11:55 AM"
Judging from your comment, some of us should be. Or maybe you still are, just suck at basic grammar.
Posted By: Tim (Guest) on August 30, 2009 at 10:34 PM
"Kdubzz, shut the hell up. that was one of the dumbest comments i read. this isn't the new york times, its just a review written by some dude, seriously, get over it just cause he used it's. we're not in school, you cunt
Posted By: Kal (Guest) on August 30, 2009 at 11:55 AM"
Judging from your comment, some of us should be. Or maybe you still are, just suck at basic grammar.
Posted By: Tim (Guest) on August 30, 2009 at 10:34 PM
Your last sentence didn't make sense. Furthermore, you should really try and avoid ending a sentence with the word "be".
Posted By: puba516 (Guest) on August 31, 2009 at 03:37 AM
"The commercials made me think this was actually was a comedy movie.
Nuff said?"
I've only seen the first two, and I'm pretty sure they're all comedies. They made me laugh, at least.
Posted By: G-Walla (Guest) on August 31, 2009 at 01:50 PM
How the hell is this the FINAL Destination? How many times can you have a FINAL Destination? The film sucked as well
Posted By: Shoe (Guest) on September 03, 2009 at 06:18 AM
The title of the series reminds me of George Carlin's take on airline talk. "All destinations are final. If you haven't gotten to where you are going, you're not there yet"
Also, in FD3, while the cameraman appeared to cause the roller-coaster crash, his removal from the scene after the vision didn't necessarily prevent the crash, as there were a few hints that something was wrong even before then.
With that being said, this film was a bit of a disappointment. At least with the other three, the characters were at least somewhat engaging. However, with the exception of the security guard, there is nothing to distinguish these characters from the dozens of other generic teens in "dead teen movies." The kills are decent enough, and I like the few references to the others in the series (although there were not enough of them).
Posted By: Michael L (Guest) on September 07, 2009 at 05:03 PM
"The plane crash in the first movie had a ripple effect that caused the ENTIRE second movie"
WTF are you talking about? Neither the plane crash, nor the entire first movie for that matter, had anything to do with the second movie - other than Clear had a cameo/bit part and they said Alex was dead.
The second movie took place because of the pileup.
None of the movies have had anything to do with the previous movies; they have all had their own storyline arcs (other than Clear and Alex in the 2nd one).
Posted By: Nick (Guest) on September 09, 2009 at 01:41 PM
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