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I know why “The Final Destination” was released in
3-D. It’s to distract you from the fact that you’re being
told the exact same story all over again, only with new
characters and a plot stripped so bare that the word “simple”
hardly begins to describe it. ***
What started as a clever and frightening idea back
in 2000 has grown tiresome and derivative, and while it
isn’t quite campy, it definitely takes itself less seriously.
Consider an early scene in which a couple of boys cover
their ears to shut out loud racetrack noises; their mother
provides them with tampons to use as earplugs. Another scene
late in the film shows a man trying but failing to hang
himself: “I’ve been trying to kill myself all day!” he whines,
after which he goes through a list of other failed suicide
attempts. ***
Of course, the 3-D process itself is the majority of
the problem. Apparently, death scenes are lot funnier when
objects come directly at you. That definitely explains shots
of a man’s head getting impaled, a rock whizzing through
a woman’s eye socket, and a tire flying through the air
before decapitating a young woman. Never mind the horror
of it all; if you’re in the right mood, you will be in for
a good laugh. ***
In “The Final Destination,” the fourth in the series,
an equally hapless group of young people find themselves
in a frantic struggle against Death. When attending a racecar
event with his friends, the burdened Nick O’Bannon (Bobby
Campo) suddenly and inexplicably has a premonition that
a car accident will kill many people in the arena, himself
included. ***
Panicked, he causes a fuss and gets himself and his
friends kicked out of the arena, along with a select group
of people. Lo and behold, there’s an accident, and many
people are killed. That should be the end of it, but hold
on--it now seems that Death is going through the accident
survivors one by one and picking them off. ***
Nick foresees every event, naturally, although he can’t
quite make out who the event is intended for. That changes
when he remembers his initial vision; through a process
too inconsequential to describe, he determines the order
in which each survivor will die. ***
It now becomes a matter of Nick breaking the chain
and stopping Death in its tracks. But how? His supportive
but rattled girlfriend, Lori (Shantel VanSanten) doesn’t
seem to know, and neither do his callous friend, Hunt (Nick
Zano), and his skeptical girlfriend, Janet (Haley Webb).
Maybe George Lanter, the race track security guard (Mykelti
Williamson), will be able to help Nick figure something
out. But they had better hurry; the list of survivors is
dwindling fast, and Nick and his friends are next. ***
Usually, I provide a plot description first and then
get into the deeper aspects of the story, such as characterization
and theme. In the case of “The Final Destination,” the plot
is the extent of the film’s depth. You want to know about
Nick, Lori, Hunt, and Janet? Look no further than what I
said in the previous paragraphs. ***
The actors in this movie weren’t hired to play human
beings; they were hired to mindlessly stand in a scene and
wait for their cue to die a horrible death. Think of it
in terms of Sid from the original “Toy Story”: He saw toys
not as prized possessions but as worthless objects, and
he liked to destroy them just for the fun of it. Destruction,
I admit, can be fun, especially in a horror film. But when
all you have at your disposal are drones that have absolutely
no life to them, there’s no sense of fun or entertainment.
There’s only a sense of emptiness. ***
That being said, I realize I haven’t said much about
the 3-D process. I’ll say this much: It achieves what it
set out to achieve. This is especially true of the opening
and closing credit sequences, which feature animated x-ray
images of people being killed in all sorts of nasty ways.
Bones break. Teeth shatter and fly right at you. Skullcaps
get sliced off. A drill bit seems to be aimed right at our
heads. ***
Does this sound appealing to you? If so, fine. If not,
be aware that it’s probably the best the movie has to offer
in the way of cool graphic imagery. Not even a carwash mishap
or a movie theater explosion, both effective, have the same
power and punch. And shots of Death manipulating objects
to cause a disaster stopped being clever a long time ago.
***
Why are they making more of these movies? Didn’t the
first one say everything that needed to be said? The insinuation
is that “The Final Destination” is the last in the series,
but I’ve repeatedly observed that the word “final” is meaningless
when it comes to a popular horror franchise (“Friday the
13th” used it twice, and they were proven wrong both times).
***
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