Not surprisingly enough, the whole “Final Destination” franchise has become like a carnival ride, too. You get on, you sit down, and watch the magic happen, and then watch people die in the most gruesome fashions imaginable, and then you shut it off and somehow feel content with your exercise in sadism. Death once again proves to his master that he’s kind of a moron, because every film involves someone guessing his tricks as he causes a death like a game of “Mouse Trap” personally created by Rube Goldberg at his most sadistic.
The “Final Destination” franchise continues on whether some of us like it or not because it made its money back and scored mixed reviews. What began with a film about fate and dodging death has now become an exercise in watching people die for ninety minutes, and for what it offers the audience (not much), “Final Destination 3” is a dumb but fun ninety minute ride. You get on, watch the people die, have a few shits and giggles, but I know the people that will enjoy this most will be the fourteen year old demographic who will just go orgasmic from watching two girls get burned to death in a tanning booth, or a man having his torso chopped off. But, this installment is much better than part two, if that’s any sort of accomplishment, because it takes the material slightly more seriously this time, and the chemistry between Winstead and Merriman is watchable.
And in each of the films, it’s always tense to watch the lead up to a death. If you can believe a gym would put a water fountain a foot away from an electrical outlet, or that a small rat can cause a catastrophe, then you’ll enjoy it. You can almost feel that the writers are running out of ideas in terms of characterization, story, and deaths. Because most of “Final Destination 3” is what can be called pure forced material pushed on audiences. Wong demonstrates repetition through lapses of logic that is too demanding. These characters are dumb, thus they have no common sense, so you have to believe the moves they pull off to cause their deaths can happen. I know we’re supposed to believe that the deaths are unpredictable, but are we supposed to believe that people can’t catch on after three gruesome deaths that there’s some sort of pattern? But to believe much of what happens here really requires stupidity from its audience mostly.
You can sense the writers reaching and grabbing for any sort of material, because not only is there no characterization attempted to bring us into the deaths of these people, but any characterization performed is forced with dialogue that was just padding and nothing more. Rather than get on with their attempts to stop these deaths, we’re subjected to constant whining from the two characters over and over and over and then we’re introduced to a forced death that’s never believable or fun. You can tell by the reaching because our main character can tell who will die next and how through pictures a la “The Omen”, and then it becomes predictable. The writers would want to think that the deaths and their little twists are shocking, but really it’s boring the audience will lose patience quickly.
Especially since the shock effect is lost on the creator’s insistence on making the deaths as gory as possible. But when the deaths are so ridiculous, they lose the shock. And sadly, you get the feeling the more these movies continue the less of a story there will be, and it will be reduced to just a ninety minute montage of death sequences. Much of the sheer idiocy of the writers includes the climax which not only is obvious padding, but ends up being utterly pointless and boring, because it’s a weak tease. I wonder why this is still called “Final Destination” if there aren’t any planes involved anymore. Either way, Wong’s installment has some interesting moments with the fun sequences, and tolerable characters, but it’s really just a boring and repetitive sequel to a rather ludicrous franchise, and it’s just crappy.