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.jpg) “Final Destination” was made way back in 2000. The film had great characters, a hot cast and was stylishly directed by James Wong. 2003’s “Final Destination 2” tried to further the story of the first movie, but was nothing more than a gore flick with some good looking sequences. The third film would come in 2006 and although it marked James Wong’s return to the series, there’s no connection to the 2000 original.
So here’s “The Final Destination,” a title that gives me hope that this may be the last film in the series. After seeing this film, I pray it’s the last.
This film doesn’t try to connect itself to the 2000 original, nor does it try to do anything remotely interesting. The characters are bland and are only brought into existence so the movie can kill them off one by one. The character’s names are inconsequential, as they are all interchangeable. I use the term “character” very loosely here, as these human piñatas lack any character traits that might make them unique or any fun to watch evade death for 90 minutes. The only character that stands out to me is the main guy’s girlfriend and only because I found her to be attractive, but not attractive enough to look up the actress’s name. The movie gave me no reason to care.
You should know the plot in these films by now. There’s a guy who takes his girlfriend, best-friend and best-friend’s girlfriend to a stock car track where the main guy has a vision of a car crash. The crash is either terrible or merciful depending on how attached you are to the characters merely five minutes into the flick. The movie could have really ended at this point, but no our bland, boring, running for their lives characters evade death and are now trying to dodge death’s cold embrace at every turn.
The Wikipedia tells me that Bobby Campo is our main guy and his girlfriend is played by Shantel VanSanten. Their performances are stilted and awkward, although I got a sense that director David R. Ellis made them memorize their lines. It’s just rehashed nonsense from the other movies, so kudos for knowing your lines, kids!
The first “Final Destination” movie had ideas. It had characters I liked and cared about if they died or not. The characters tried everything they could to evade death and had to come up with ways not to die. Sometimes they succeeded, sometimes they failed, but it was always interesting. “The Final Destination” doesn’t want to create characters that I care about. It seemingly goes out of its way to make characters I hate. The best friend character, wiki tells me his name is Hunt and he’s played by Nick Zano, is a jerk to everyone around him. There is a character named Carter who is known in the film as “The Racist.” His character says the most about this film. “The Final Destination” wants us to take a certain cathartic pleasure in his death. When you think about that, it’s a little twisted. Are we supposed to be on the side of the characters or are we supposed to be rooting for death?
This leads me to wonder, what is the fun of watching a scene where we know someone is going to die? Even the “Saw” movies give its characters a way out, even as sick and sadistic as it may be. In “The Final Destination,” there is no way out. Death is out there and it is going to succeed regardless. The film doesn’t even try to make it interesting. It gives us scene after scene of each character’s death with no story or hope for a way out.
The film seems more interested in its Rube Goldberg traps then creating a compelling story. It thinks I’m interested in seeing person after person die, but I have no connection to these characters so I couldn’t care less. Create a compelling story, not a film where characters line up like sheep to the slaughter. It’s not interesting, it’s not suspenseful and it’s not a film I liked at all.
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