Yep this is it, the Final Destination, the alleged final installment in the “Final Destination” franchise that promises to close up the entire storyline. And yes, I’m not buying it either. When there is money to be made, sequels are still a potential cash cow and I think the series will continue to live on when the studios decide it’s time to make some money off of this carnival of cruel and painful deaths. What “The Final Destination” promises is not what it delivers. There are simply no questions answered to the big questions. Who are chosen to receive these premonitions? Are these people just random or do they possess unusual powers or gifts? Are they apart of a legacy or do they just happen to be apart of an accident or misfire? Who or what grants them these premonitions? Does death give it to them as some sort of sick game? And if there is some mystical being granting these people the gift to foretell the next move of death why do they want these people to be one step ahead of death?
And why does the premonition only work for a short time until the inevitable happens? Does death have control over the environment or does it rely on human error? And who was Tony Todd’s mortician character? Why did he know so much about death’s plan? And why doesn’t death just give these people heart attacks and be done with the whole fiasco? None of these questions are ever approached and there aren’t even allusions to the answers at all. For a movie that promises to close up all the loose threads from the entire series it basically is nothing more than just another sequel with the same predictable formula, along with over the top deaths that are just incredibly ridiculous and lack any of the shock factor from previous films. Which is why the movie is in 3D. The producers don’t seem to have any faith in the deaths they orchestrate so they resort to 3D to suck in audiences in hopes of reclaiming some of the past surprises that they’ve obviously run out of.
Because the deaths are utterly lackluster which is two times as bad because the special effects are really sub-par most of the time. There are torsos lopped off, bodies squeezed through chain link fences, and rocks knocking the eyes out of women and all of it is utterly dull as day old bread. The movie is presented with numerous opportunities to further explore this phenomenon and provide us with interesting characters once and for all and alas, there’s nothing here to chew on. Everything here is so utterly convoluted and is still set on this thought that it’s hipper than we perceive it to be, hence the ridiculous fake outs that occur only to think that the actual deaths are more grim than we thought they’d be. I’d normally complain about the paper thin storyline, but everyone knows you don’t go to these movies for story. Which I think is another sad case because a movie like this could really deal with life and death and our facing our own mortality.
I know, it sounds much too complicated for a series that’s been only about cool and disgusting deaths from the get go, but there’s also plenty of room for existentialism and lore. There’s mention by one of the characters about deja vu which is then completely ignored for the rest of the movie. So, are the premonitions just powerful deja vu? Hell I would have been happy with the characters mourning their friends, which they never actually do during the story. The movie clocks in at a merciful eighty minutes and ends on a low note that mocks the entire series and promises another sequel.
Count me out. Lackluster, convoluted, boring, laughable, simple-minded, and just plain stupid, “The Final Destination” misses every chance to answer questions and let us in on some of the secrets, instead it is just happy with mocking the audience and the franchise while delivering awfully forgettable deaths along the way. 3D or no 3D, this movie stinks.