Synopsis: Wendy (Winstead) has a wild hallucination in which she sees her own death, along with about seven others who she is able to save initially, on a roller coaster. Afterward, "Death" is out to finish the task that Wendy thwarted. "He" has a calculated plan to off the others in the order they would have died on the roller coaster. It is discovered first that intervention can cause "Death" to "skip" a life and move on to the next, and that the manner of the deaths can be predicted (to a degree) by examining photographs of the survivors taken on the night of the crash.
Notes: Before you watch this movie, it is helpful to watch at least the first in the Final Destination franchise for two reasons. First, there are a few comments made in this third installment that allude to the original chapter, although they will not shine any insight on this movie that can't be gleaned by not watching the first picture. Second, if you have seen the first movie, you will know exactly what to expect in the third one. In case you have no intention of ever seeing the others, here's what to expect:
A razor-thin plot Characters that you don't care about A high level of predictability Lots of blood and gore A fair amount of profanity If you're expecting a movie that's worthy of literary examination, you're far off. Though the genre of this flick ("Slasher" flicks, or, as Roger Ebert puts it, Dead Teenager Flicks) can be examined as a whole, this particular one doesn't do anything amazing in direction, cinematography, screen writing, CGI, acting... To put it bluntly, this movie exists for the entertainment value it provides and nothing more. The plot of this movie is almost non-existent. A bunch of high school graduates barely survive death when a freak accident causes Wendy to see the next five minutes of her own life. They are stalked and killed by an unseen force that wants them all to die like they were supposed to. The End. Cue credits. Stand up and leave the theater. What keeps you watching the movie is the incredibly creative and gory ways in which the characters are killed off. Not to spoil the movie, these deaths involve car engines, the contents of a hardware store, and electric tanning beds, amongst other everyday objects.
I won't say much more about the ways this movie is bad because these are things that the movie doesn't even pretend to care about. The film is, as a whole, a joke on itself. It knows that it doesn't hold any merit or substance. It doesn't provide a moral message. It doesn't need to. That's not why it was made.
When somebody dies here, you can see it coming. The suspense is enough to keep you watching, even if you're not a big fan of splattering innards. The audience will look at the events set in motion during the scene and say, "This is what's gonna happen, and then that's gonna happen, and then they're going to die this way," and then the characters die (or survive in some cases) in a completely different, and often gorier, manner than the audience expected. With respect to shock value and excitement, this movie succeeds.
Pros:If you know what to expect, this movie is truly entertaining. Go to see the blood, the guts, and the inventive ways Final Destination 3 kills its characters.
Cons:Aside from entertainment value, there's not much to give merit to here. But sometimes, mindless entertainment is all you need.
Last Words: If you've seen the first one, if you've seen the second one, if you enjoyed either of them, the third volume of gory supernatural murders is right up your alley. Like watching most Arnold Schwarzenegger hits, FD3 provides fantastic escape from the mundane boringness that everyday life can cause. The movie injects you with the adrenaline that Mondays suck out of you. If you're too much of a movie snob, don't bother with it. I can think of ways that the director could have upped the artistic value of the movie, most notably with the camera work, but what point would that serve? It would only draw your attention away from the fact that characters you don't care about are dying in ways that are so outlandish and contrived that you laugh until you're out of breath. Final Destination 3 is all it needs to be to succeed.
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