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Info:
  • DVD: The Final Destination 3D
  • Rating: R
  • Starring: Bobby Campo, Shantel VanSanten, Haley Webb, Nick Zano
  • Written By: Eric Bress
  • Directed By: David R. Ellis
  • Distributor: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
  • Original Year of Release: 2009
  • Extras: See Below
  • Series:

The Final Destination 3D DVD Review

This Destination Should Be the Final One!

By Tim Janson     January 12, 2010


Death by Car Wash in The Final Destination 3-D
© Warner Bros. Home Entertainment

 

Like “Wash, rinse, repeat”…The Final Destination’s refrain is laboriously repetitive. The fourth film in the series offers nothing new over its predecessors other than the novelty of being in 3D. Now sure, if there was ever a series perfectly suited for 3-D it’s the Final Destination series with its in-your-face kills. Unfortunately, 3-D on home TV pretty much sucks. While technology has advances in theaters, home 3-D still has not managed to do any better than the same blue and red 3-D glasses that have been around for decades. If you can sit through this and not develop a migraine from the glasses then you’re a winner!
 
This film begins as all the others, with one of the characters having a premonition of a terrible disaster. This time it takes place at an auto race as Nick (Bobby Campo) has a vision of a crash which will spill into the stands killing dozens of spectators. Nick gets his friends Lori, Hunt, and Janet out, as well as some nearby spectators just before the carnage unfolds. And carnage it is with, among other kills, a woman who gets crushed by a car’s engine. 
 
From there you know the story. Death isn’t about to let the group get away. It’s not long before each of the survivors of Nick’s vision gets killed in one gruesome way after another as Nick tries to somehow break the chain and throw death off their track. Like elaborately placed dominos, the death scenes unfold with chance circumstances leading to the big payoff. But the entire film trudges from one death to the next. The group sits around trying to figure out who is going to be next on the hit list, arriving just seconds too late to stop it, before the entire cycle starts over. Even the Friday the 13th series managed to forward the character of Jason somewhat in each film. Here there’s not even the attempt to understand Death’s…or Fate’s motives. The director merely wants to play with the 3-D which is lackluster at best. Even the actors play their roles like soldiers doing the same drill for the hundredth time.
 
As has been the case with the series, the opening mass-killing is the highlight of the film but this one has little to keep the viewer’s interest beyond the first twenty minutes. While there are some original and gory kills it seems we always get the ubiquitous character getting hit by speeding car/bus/truck, ambulance, etc…
 
Extras
 
The DVD is double-sided and includes both 3D and 2D versions of the film
 
There are also several deleted scenes including most notably several more but less elaborate kills that take place at the racetrack.
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1 
Moz72 1/13/2010 10:32:51 PM

Want to be a successful screen writer, but can't aford to go to film school?

All you need is a copy of the script from Final Destination (doesn't matter which film, either one will suffice.), a sharp #2 pencil with a good eraser, and an agent.

Open the script, and with the eraser of your pencil, start erasing the names of the charecters. Flip the pencil around and write in new names to replace the ones you erased.

BAM! You just completed your script for Final Destination 5!

Give the script to you agent who will pass it along to the studio, and within moments the studio heads will be calling you! Congratulations!

If you really want to be be creative, try coming up with new horrible death scenes for the victims. I suggest watching 1000 Ways to Die on Spike TV for ideas (check your local tv listings).

wraith729 1/14/2010 11:34:04 AM

I will rent this one just because they were fun movies. Not terribly bright, or great writing, but entertaining enough to kill an hour and a half or so. You have to admit, the car engine to the back of the head and the weights crushing the guys skull in FD3 we're pretty cool.

CaptAmerica04 1/14/2010 3:06:08 PM

I saw the first one.  It was SO amazingly STUPID as to be unbearable.  I had to go to church and cleanse myself after watching it, and then to a library just to try to minimize the loss of I.Q. points I would have otherwise suffered.  Dear GOD in HEAVEN what a stupid movie.  And from what I heard the sequels were identical (as Moz clearly highlights).

They NEVER tell you why some character gets a random vision of his death, or WHY death/fate/the producers then stalk the miracle survivors to put them to death in excessively convoluted and ridiculous ways.  It's totally moronic and insulting.

myklspader 1/14/2010 4:15:34 PM

Odds are I won't check this out, I like the first one though. I would have liked it if it was kept as an “X-Flies” episode but I think they would have had to make the story span two or three shows in order to encompass the whole idea. I do agree with Cap on one thing and that was they could have explained better than the Mortician did in the first one why exactly the visions happened.

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