Format: DVD from Freeport Public Library through interlibrary loan on rockin’ flatscreen.
I like the conceit of the Final Destination movies. The idea that a couple of people have cheated death then become targets of Death in the literal sense and wind up dying in a series of Rube Goldberg-style accidents is a fantastic hook for a film. The problem with the series is that it reached its highpoint in the open scenes of Final Destination 2. Not a single person I know who has seen that movie will willingly drive behind a log truck. What that means for the rest of the films in the series is that the car crash sequence is always hanging over the films. Final Destination 3 tries desperately to match this and can’t.
The way the films work is that the opening sequence sets up the idea that someone has a terrible premonition of an accident, freaks out, and leaves the situation along with a few other people. Then the accident happens exactly like the premonition suggested it would. The people who managed to avoid their terrible fate in the freak accident are then picked off one by one, essentially in the order they would have died in the premonition. Where the first film used a plane crash and the second used a massive highway accident, Final Destination 3 opts for a freak accident on a rollercoaster.
Our premonition in this case comes from Wendy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a self-described control freak who is taking pictures for the high school yearbook. She desperately does not want to go on the rollercoaster at an amusement park and has a huge premonition about what is going to happen if she gets on the ride. Naturally, she gets off, is followed by a group of people, and the ride crashes in a freak accident. The casualties include her boyfriend Jason (Jesse Moss) and her best friend Carrie (Gina Holden). Carrie’s boyfriend Kevin (Ryan Merriman) uncovers the details of the first two films—situations where people had premonitions followed by a series of freak accidents—but Wendy doesn’t want to listen.
Of course, what’s going to happen is that the people on the rollercoaster are going to start dying off in crazy accidents, and all of them are presaged by photographs that Wendy took on the night of the initial accident. These accidents will involve (in no particular order) a weight bench, fireworks, tanning beds, a nail gun, and a truck engine. As with the previous films, some of the deaths are instant, some take a little longer, and all of them are pretty horrific in one way or another.
There’s a lot here that is good in terms of your typical splatter movie and typical movie in the Final Destination series. The deaths, while suitably horrible, are also frequently very creative in terms of how they come about. They are also extremely bloody and gruesome, which is really what you’re paying for with these movies.
The problem is that Final Destination 3 is desperate to have the sort of cultural moment that Final Destination 2 had with its epic opening sequence, which is the absolute high point of the series. This third film in the series is so desperate to get there that the opening premonition and accident lasts for more than 20 minutes. That’s not a lot if we’re talking about the latest Scorsese film, but Final Destination 3 runs a hair’s breadth over 90 minutes and this includes a very robust closing credit sequence. It’s close to a quarter of the actual non-credit running time.
That, more than anything, is the issue. Rather than giving us an entertaining film of people trying desperately to thwart death and eventually being blindsided in some way that no one saw coming, it’s trying to up the ante on the previous film and never gets there. If it had instead just tried to provide a good, scary film, it would have been a lot better than the equivalent of jumping up and down for attention, which is what this is.
The truth is that I always want to like the Final Destination movies more than I actually do because I love the concept of them. Horror movies are all about the thrills and violent deaths, of course, but they are also all about people fighting desperately against something that is terrible trying to kill them. Monsters and maniacs are one thing; but having the actual spirit of Death stalking people is a fantastic thing because it feels impossible to avoid. That’s the brilliance of the idea; but the execution of this is never up to snuff.
Like all of the Final Destination movies, Final Destination 3 is, to quote Gen-Z, mid at best.
Why to watch Final Destination 3: It’s all about the Rube Goldberg deaths.
Why not to watch: More of the same.