The Final Destination 3-D (2009) Review
Written by: yourmotheratemydog715
The “Final Destination” movies have never been any of my favorite movies or anything, but I’ve always found them entertaining and a good waste of time. So, when I heard that they were going to make another Final Destination, this time in 3-D, I decided that I should probably see it in theaters. Also, David R. Ellis, who directed the second installment in the series, was directing it. Final Destination 2 is probably my favorite of the series, so I figured this one was going to be some good fun.
Well, you know, it’s not awesome, but I really don’t understand why it’s getting so much hate. At the moment, it has a 47.14% approval score on this site, which isn’t very good at all, especially considering the first three installments are sitting pretty at an 83%, a 77% and a 63%, respectively. Now, I agree that this new installment is probably the worst of the series so far, but not by that much. Okay, well, this review hasn’t said much of anything important so far, so I guess I’ll get on with it.
Here’s the plot, for those of you who somehow know nothing about the series. This time around, a group of teenagers are enjoying themselves at a NASCAR race. But, then, one of the teenagers has a premonition that there’s going to be a huge wreck and that everybody’s going to die. After his premonition, the teenager causes a huge ruckus, and gets his skeptic friends and a few other filler characters to leave the race. Sure enough, the huge crash happens right on cue. But, the characters’ luck is short-lived, as they were destined to die that day, and Death doesn’t take kindly to stupid teenagers screwing up his plans. So, they all die one by one in a series of ridiculous “accidents”.
Always one of the best parts of the FD movies is the premonition scene, where the teenager sees how everybody is going to die. For example, in Final Destination 2, the insane car crash scene was amazing, and I thought the NASCAR crash was going to be the same way. Unfortunately, it never really reaches the level of awesomeness that the previous installments’ disaster scenes do. It’s still pretty cool, and the 3-D definitely helps this scene a lot, but bad CGI pretty much ruined it for me. I mean, c’mon, if you’re not going to use far superior-looking practical effects, at least make the CGI not look like complete shit. There are a few parts where the CGI is just god-awful, and it really makes me wonder why the filmmakers made that particular decision.
Okay, so there’s a big crash, as usual, and it’s pretty cool, but not amazing. Now I know the only thing anyone really cares about in these movies are the ridiculous kills. Again, Final Destination 2 ruled in this aspect too, with some really awesome and memorable kills. Well, this one kind of pales in comparison, but there’s still some gory goodies for horror fans to feast on. I won’t give away any of the kills, but I’ll just say there’s some pretty cool ones. Plus, the 3-D makes them all the better. There’s no 3-D kill that rivals My Bloody Valentine’s 3-D jaw dismemberment scene (god damn, that was awesome), but y’know, they’re pretty cool. The CGI isn’t as bad as in the car crash scene, but it’s still pretty bad at moments.
One thing I didn’t like about this installment is the fact that you basically see how the people are going to die before it happens. Nick, the teenager who has the premonition at the beginning, keeps having premonitions throughout the film, giving him “hints” of how his friends are going to die. Honestly, I think it’s dumb as hell to ruin the kills before they happen. I mean, c’mon, was that necessary? Really?
I also don’t see why people are complaining about the lack of character development. I mean, honestly, slasher films aren’t really known for their intriguing characters. The characters are kind of likable, even though you don’t really get to know them at all, and there’s the obligatory douchebag characters that you want to die. I don’t really think it’s necessary for this film to have multiple flashbacks or whatever to build character development, but maybe that’s just because I don’t really care about great characters in my slashers.
The only other idea I have about people not liking the movie is that the formula is getting a little stale by this point. It’s the fourth entry, and this one makes no real changes to the tried and true formula, instead making it a retread of the previous films. And that’s not a terribly bad thing (ever heard of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”?) but I do agree that they could have made some sort of change to the movie to try and make it different than the others. I don’t see it as a big complaint however, all the Friday the 13th films are more or less the same, but I still find all the installments (excluding Jason Takes Manhattan, but I try to forget about that one) entertaining.
I don’t really have much else to say. It’s been a week since I saw the movie (school takes up the vast majority of my time, so it’s kind of hard to find an hour or so to write a review), so I can’t remember every last detail, so I’ll just leave the review at this. “The Final Destination” is pretty average, and I wouldn’t say it’s necessary to see in theaters, but it’s probably worth a rental if you’re into the series. Honestly, I’d give the film a 6 out of 10, but considering how low the approval rating is at this point, I’ll boost up its score a little by giving it a:
7 out of 10.