The Final Destination 3D - Review

[David Hawk]

I've always been a fan of the Final Destination movies, for me they're just good old fashioned fun horror movies, so when it was announced that there was going to be another installment in the series i felt a trickle of excitement tease out of the corner of my mouth, after all this is the franchise that has continually given us more inventive and gory kills with each film, so how will the latest fair?



Well first The Final Destination is directed by Final Destination 2's David R. Ellis, you know, the one with the logs? which is personally my favourite of the previous trilogy. Here we have the setup being a Nascar style oval race and the usual teens on a date, one of which has 'visions' during the race, freaks out and convinces his friends to leave along with some agrieved bystanders.
The next hour is spent with freaked out lead Nick O'Bannon (Bobby Campo) trying to convince his girlfriend and friends that they need to figure out a way to cheat Death and break the cycle.
There are again some impressively inventive deaths, although these are normally part of the visions with the actual deaths a bit of a letdown and on more than one occaision deaths copied from the previous films BUT this doesn't detract from a movie that is still having a blast killing off the typical sorority babes, lunk heads and extraneous cast members with aplomb.

The trump card with The Final Destination is the 3D, which takes the ideas used in last years surprisingly enjoyable romp My Bloody Valentine 3D and ramps them up but its also well used in quieter times, adding depth and and eerie sense of impending danger to Ellis film that your archaic 2D couldn't.

It's far from perfect, the gaping hole that is left by ignoring at least 3 of the deaths that should've been in the cycle is a glaring mistake and never explained but on the whole its a solid 7/10 for me and the 3rd best film of the series.

[Sheridan Passell]

The problem with Final Destination 2, 3, and I presume 4, is that they don't hire a writer smart enough to come up with an ending. They have created rules that by definition mean Death will keep going in cycles until everyone is dead and the person writing it can't think of a way round that. So every ending is left hanging, or doesn't make any sense.

[dalmatianjaws]

I met Jeffrey Reddick (wrote the first one) at my college internship. 90% sure he hit on me. I emailed him one time to congratulate him on the sequel and he wrote back "they didn't want me to do the second one, not after I got upset they changed my script so much with the first one."

[Sheridan Passell]

Hm, seems Final Destination is real - http://www.buzzfeed.com/rchemel/dj-am-found-dead-4c

[David Hawk]

That is very true about the endings, they did try to address this in The Final Destination but it was a bit tacked on and felt that way.

[Sheridan Passell]

The original ending for the first Final Destination had Claire giving birth, that's how they break the cycle of death. Which makes enough sense for me. But then the ending was considered too slow so they replaced it with one where Death just goes round and round in circles. Imagine if every sequel had to end with one of the characters giving birth. It would lead to total sluttery.
...Actually sounds alright.

[David Hawk]

I'd be there on opening night that's for sure