Movie Review - "Final Destination 3"
Written By: Joseph A. Gillespie
Final Destination, the series of movies that takes "kill them all!" to the next level, returns in it's third version. In Final Destination 3 another lucky(?) person is able to cheat death, and in doing so bring it's vengeance upon a small group of people. Sound familiar? Well, it should since it's the exact same plot as the previous two Final Destination movies. Is that bad? Not really, it's a fun concept and their are plenty of weird people who want to watch it... that means you.
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Ok, so what does make Final Destination 3 bad though, is that there is only one reason people love Final Destination movies - the kill scenes. That's basically all the movies have to offer anyway, so it's got to be good. Final Destination had this down pat. Shocking, unexpected, and intense. Final Destination 2 pulled out some big tricks, particularly the intro, but even through the movie there were memorable scenes (Jaws of life + broken pipe, anyone?). Final Destination 3 however, seems to fall short in some way. Sure, there's more gore, and better effects, but the actual death scenes themselves seem like the same old stuff every horror movie has. How many times have we seen someone fried in a tanning bed? Too many, in my opinion. The majority of the deaths in Final Destination 3 simply involve being mortally wounded in a sudden flash of action.
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That's not what Final Destination is about, it's about "smart" death scenes that involve an elaborate series of events. Overall the death scenes just seemed to fall short in the originality department.
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Ok, let's talk annoying problems. I'm not one to nitpick, but wow - Final Destination 3 is just full of "Wait, wasn't that different in the last scene?". Without even thinking about it I can name at least three scenes that had blaring mistakes. For example, and this one bothered me the most, we're looking at a voltage meter that is slowly counting up to critical. In one scene, the meter is at 120 and climbs up to 155. In the next scene, the meter is at 145 and climbs up to 155. Didn't we already do that? Where's the supsense in something that already happened? And that's just one of many examples. Another time one of the characters plugs a camera into her computer, and then a scene later she does it again. It seriously takes away from the suspense, and makes me question if Final Destination 3 even had any editing done to it...
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Now, I don't want to sound like Final Destination 3 was horribly bad, it wasn't. The actors did a good job at... acting, and the movie moved along at a great pace. If you can look past the mistakes, there's a lot of fun to be had in the movie. One particularly good note is that the movie seems to be more of a continuation of the first, then the second. The second film was not my favorite, and it tried to hard I think to "explain" everything that was going on. That ruined the fun and overall style of the series. So, thankfully the third takes more inspiration from the first movie, and less from the second.
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One oddity in Final Destination 3 however, was the inclusion of a gross amount sexual content. Both the first and second film had little to no nudity, innuendo, etc. But Final Destination 3 has it all. This seems a bad choice for the film, in my opinion, and it does fit into the flow of the film very well. I was quite dissapointed to see such content seeping into the film. Other than that, the characters where all very well played, and developed. You may have even felt like having some sort of feeling for them if it wasn't for the fact that you eagerly awaiting their demise...
Final Destination 3 in many aspects was comparable to the greatness of the first film, but it lacked in a few keys areas that could have allowed it to be better than the first. In the end though, Final Destination 3 was an enjoyable and worthy addition to the Final Destination series, and I do hope they will continue the series with a fourth, and more.
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Oh, for the real Final Destination fan, you may want to check the cool Final Destination Boxset (or as they call it, the Thrill-ogy).
Last Modified: August 9th, 2006
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