Bored to Death
I do hope that "The Final Destination", the fourth movie in this premonition fascinated horror series, truly is the final one because once you get past the novelty of the 3D there is nothing slightly remarkable or interesting about this latest incarnation. It is sadly just another rehash of what has gone before just with a new bunch of teenage victims and a new location, there is absolutely nothing else to it. Actually I tell a lie because these is something quite remarkable, that at just 78 minutes it's one of the shortest movies I have watched and yet it still feels drawn out and over long.
Whist watching the speedway from the stands with his friend, Nick (Bobby Campo) suddenly gets a vision of a major accident, killing him, his friends and several of those seated around him. In a panic he manages to leave the stadium with several of those people around him only to hear the accident happening inside the speedway. Stunned and confused by these events he is even more shocked when those he inadvertently saved start dieing leading him to believe that maybe death is seeking out those who escaped thanks to his premonition and only he can save them.
So as you can gather "The Final Destination" is just another reworking of the original storyline, a young man gets a premonition of some major disaster and miraculously saves his friends and those around him only for death to return to claim his victims, yawn. Sorry but having already had 3 movies doing exactly the same adding a fourth one really does little other than reek of trying to squeeze every last penny out of a franchise that death should have killed off long before now. It wouldn't be so terrible if something different was done this time around with a new clever twist on the formula but nope it's just the same outrageous nonsense which ends up feeling as filler in between a series of contrived death scenes.
Talking of the contrived death scenes, well either I am becoming numb to senseless drawn out gore fests or those scenes in "The Final Destination" are particularly lame. The ingenuity of these scenes seems to have gone walk abouts, instead throwing numerous and obvious red herrings at you to try to build up some sort of tension as the impending doom looms. Except it spoils it all with something totally inconsequential providing the final nail in the coffin. Plus the amount of blood bursting gore definitely feels like it has been toned down, to the point that whilst certain aspects are gruesome they lack the impact which many audiences would wish for.
So that just really leaves the novelty factor and yes I am talking about the 3D element, although you can purchase "The Final Destination" in various DVD formats so if you don't fancy putting on those annoying cardboard glasses you can get just a plain 2D version. Well "The Final Destination" has its moments when it comes to the use of 3D, but they are few and far between with the majority of the 3D used adding little to the movie. There are other movies which now incorporate 3D more effectively and if "The Final Destination" was your first look at 3D you may end up asking what all the fuss is about.
As for the actual performances well what do you really expect, girls screaming their heads off, macho BS from the non believing male and of course the slightly weaker more sensitive one who looks confused by getting these deathly premonitions, well you get all of that. It is exactly what you expect with an eclectic bunch of characters all lined up to meet their demise in one unfortunate way or another. Although you don't expect to empathise with many of these characters you do expect to feel for at least a couple of the central figures, but the characters are so under written it's impossible to feel anything for any of them as they end up just becoming puppets in a game of death for the writers.
What this all boils down to is that I hope "The Final Destination" lives up to it's title because it is the most disappointing of the series to date. Other than the 3D gimmick it brings nothing new to the movie and so ends up feeling nothing more than a mediocre rehash of what has all been done before. It just feels rather lame and although it's only 78 minutes long still feels like it's drawn out as it tries to fill out that time with unimportant scenes.
