Final Destination 3 (2006) April 23, 2008
Posted by gproject in : Recently Viewed , trackbackDirected by: James Wong
The horror genre is undoubtedly the largest purveyor of the extraneous sequel - you only have to look as far as the excess of Elm Street, Friday the 13th, or Hellraiser flicks to see the heady heights that a franchise can reach when not hindered by a Hollywood preoccupation with the ‘trilogy’. That trend has most recently been reignited by the Saw movies [reviews: Saw II & Saw III], of which we will be subjected to its fifth instalment this year. What is notable about all these examples is the generally held view that what starts out as an interesting take on the genre very quickly descends into lazy repetition and a loss of the spark which made the franchise so big in the first place. Now reaching its third movie, you can welcome into this group: Final Destination.
Plotted as an almost identical replica of its original, the film begins with high school girl Wendy Christensen being subjected to the now obligatory premonition, which this time features a roller-coaster accident. As a result of her outburst, friends and a few hangers-on get off the ride and, naturally, it proceeds to crash horribly. But that’s not the end of it. Having cheated death, the lucky few are tracked down by a dangerous entity which causes other unlikely accidents to occur to them one by one. Nobody, it seems, can cheat death.
And that’s it. What the original Final Destination offered was a nice take on the teen slasher, whereby the ‘killer’ was in fact the invisible force of death itself. This brought something to the movie and made the systematic one-by-one knocking-off of various high school students much more bearable. The second film, on the other hand, simply changed the location and upped the gore-factor for cheap thrills. There was an admirable attempt at linking the films, but it still suffered from inferior sequel-itis. This instalment is unfortunately just more of the same, once again changing the location and jumping on the proliferation of bloody violence in the likes of Hostel and Saw by making its deaths more gruesome, instead of making its story more interesting.
The result is a film that offers almost nothing to anyone who has seen the Final Destination movies before and in this respect pitches itself as maybe the laziest of all the horror franchises for having to do little more than come up with an accident and some thinly-drawn high school characters, before letting you watch them go through the motions of figuring out what is going on and then trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to save those marked for death. Nothing will come as a surprise, including the film’s ‘6 months later’ coda which viewers of the first Final Destination will know makes the plot itself even more futile due to the nature of how ‘death’ deals with survivors.
What you’re left with is nothing more than some inventive killings and the vacuous wait time between them. It’s interesting that James Wong, the director of the original Final Destination, has returned to both write and direct this movie, after having no involvement in the first sequel. Where the story has the most fun is playing with your expectations, most notably during the scene set inside a hardware store at night. They throw all kinds of completely unnecessary heavy machinery and dangerous apparatus into the scene to keep you guessing what horrible fate will befall the characters. It’s all a stalling tactic though, and the ‘picture clues’ element of the story sometimes gives the game away too early. I also thought that ingenuity in the ‘accidental’ deaths had been lost somewhat in favour of a pinball-style domino effect that was a little too complicated for its own good.
There’s really not much to recommend here and despite perfectly adequate performances from Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ryan Merriman and Kris Lemche in the title roles, plus competent direction from James Wong, it’s ultimately an empty watch, especially if you’ve seen the prequels which, let’s face it, if you’re considering this then you probably have. I enjoyed the original Final Destination, which makes it an even bigger blow that it has descended into such a sub-standard franchise. It was always to be one-hit wonder though, and with its central premise explained and exhausted in one movie, has had little option but to circle round and do it all again in subsequent outings. If there are to be more, then the plot is going to need a real shot of creativity, because Final Destination, as a concept, has reached the end of the line.
Comments»
A tad harsh perhaps? I thought this was quite inventive, well paced and directed with a modicum of panache. It’s certainly a lot more knowing and tongue-in-cheek than the first film.
I agree any further sequels will need to bend the forumula a bit or end up as straight-to-dvd fodder.
Only £2 at asda btw (which probably backs up your rating more than mine)!
I don’t think I’m particularly harsh here, just disappointed. You’re right that about the tongue in cheek element though - that warehouse scene being the high point - but does this franchise really need that knowingness? It didn’t originally, so this just feels like a cheap method of keeping it alive – less Scream, more Scary Movie.
£2 in Asda eh? Might be worth picking up just to see how they’ve implemented the ingenious ‘choose their fate’ feature.