Please Make This *The* Final Destination (The Final Destination 3D (DVD))

Member Name: Great_reviewer07

Product:	The Final Destination 3D (DVD)
Date:	19/09/09 (129 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good premise

Disadvantages: Lack of elaborate deaths, no imaginative plot like others, doesn't live up to the hype

While at the races, Nick (Bobby Campo) has a shocking premonition about a horrific crash that will happen and in turn will lead to all the other drivers crashing and killing numerous innocent people in the audience. This leads Nick to a state of panic and in this state he mistakenly hits another member of the audience, a scrap entails and security escorts Nick, his girlfriend, two friends and a group of other audience members out of the area. Nick tells them about the impending crash which happens seconds later.

Unnerved by the events, Nick wants to forget about what happened and get on with his life however when the survivors begin to die one by one, suspicion is aroused that maybe the subsequent events aren't just shocking coincidences and are something a bit more sinister...

Being a big fan of the Final Destination trilogy I had much anticipation about the third sequel and possible ending for the horror franchise. I've always been impressed with how inventive and imaginative the first three Final Destination films have been and if they can make two successful sequels what's stopping this, The Final Destination from being a huge hit just like it's predecessors?

Each Final Destination film works from the same premise with each one bringing something a little different to the table; in Final Destination (2000) it was the Flight 180 plane crash where it all began, Final Destination 2 (2003) brought us arguably the most realistic scenario of the highway pile up, Final Destination 3 (2006) we had the breakdown of a rollercoaster leading a group of teenagers to be horrifically killed and finally we have The Final Destination (2009) where we witness a race track pile up. I feel that this premise bares a little too much resemblance to Final Destination 2 where we had the extremely imaginative highway pile up which happened after a series of freakish coincidences. Unfortunately the premonition in the most recent reincarnation of the horror series just isn't up to par, there's no imagination put into it at all and there are no coincidences which we've come to expect in a Final Destination film. Infact the scene is pretty much over in a matter of minutes, the cars crash and then everybody freaks out; you'd be forgiven for thinking you'd just tuned into a run of the mill horror/thriller with a modest budget, however with such a great reputation behind the series I was expecting a lot more. You get no contact from the drivers, I was expecting to see them and their driving adding towards the tension and ultimately the crash but there was nothing. There was one thing that led to the crash and that was just an accident, there was nothing out of the ordinary and the fact that it led to such a horrific accident was simply implausible.

The deaths subsequent to the crash are again very lacklustre, after being a little disappointed with Final Destination 3 I'd happily watch that a million times for it's inventiveness and implausibility which somehow makes it plausible. This film appears to have just been made to make money from the success of the previous three films. This is bound to be a big money maker but I doubt that there will be anymore sequels after this disappointing effort.

It was the inventiveness that made these films so successful, it relies on that and that alone, without the imaginative nature of the death scenes this simply isn't Final Destination. The death scenes aren't well thought out at all, the first one seems to happen out of nowhere and it happens, not as a result of tragic coincidences but from things that could only possibly happen if someone had been there to make sure it happened. The first death was extremely disappointing because it showed none of the originality that the other films have shown over their 6 year run. The second death scene is mildly better, this uses a lot of red herrings which the films have become famous for since Final Destination 2 however these seem to have been thought up out of nowhere and just placed wherever the director could place them, not caring whether it would result in an tension filled scene or not. Once again the red herrings are there simply to fool people before hopefully shocking them by killing the character in a different way out of nowhere. The second death is extremely predictable after the red herrings have happened you know exactly when it's going to happen and the reason it happens is unexplainable, we receive no reason for it happening, usually with Final Destination you'll get some unfortunate coincidences before a characters death yet this one comes out of nowhere and we get no hint of it coming.

In Final Destination 3 the characters would figure out clues concerning how they or another person is going die from the pictures taken at the fair, which was a very inventive concept and led to a lot of tension, Final Destination 2 used premonitions from the main character Kimberly having flashes about what could lead to a death, this took away some of the tension of the death scenes because it gave the audience an idea about what was going to happen and took away the element of surprise for when it did happen. The Final Destination goes right back to this premise of the mini premonitions which unfortunately give too much away for the subsequent deaths.

Final Destination has never been known for it's Oscar worthy acting performances and this film is no different, unsurprisingly the main characters are played by a group of good looking teenagers and although their portrayals aren't terrible there's also nothing to make them stand out. This is just horror stereotypes and The Final Destination doesn't seem to care how blatant they are about aiming their films at the younger generation. As long as this film makes money it will be a success for the makers, sadly for us it wont be quite as successful.

The film is still fairly interesting to watch, based on the initial premise but it never regains the atmosphere that made the first three films (especially one and two) such huge successes. There's no tension in the film which could be seen as bad acting but it's mainly the story that's at fault. The lack of innovation is shocking compared to how inventive the first three films were and I was terribly disappointed after paying £7.50 see this film after looking forward to it for weeks.

Overall this isn't a film that I would recommend to anyone, if you're a fan of the series I would stick to the first three films as this is likely to tar the reputation of them for you. I believe that if this didn't have the Final Destination name tag attached to it, it would have been released direct to DVD. All in all, a big disappointment which will ultimately tarnish the good reputation of the previous films.

The film is currently showing at cinemas.

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Summary: A real disappointment