Ok so we're not expecting much here are we? Some nice CG of people being dismembered, some gratuitous 3D sequences, and some all around ridiculous deaths. Well I'm proud to say that the final destination delivers on some of those...sorta.
First problem is that the 3d falls pretty damn flat on it's ass; 90% of the time you can't even tell you're watching a 3d movie. Don't get me wrong, the whole "Look at this long stick that exists solely to show off the 3d effects" shots aren't my favorite but there seems to be an almost complete lack of dimension; something I expected from the acting, but not from the effects. There are a few nice scenes, some nice blood fountains and a some flying shrapnel, but overall it seems like a movie that had the 3d thrown in at the last second. Puzzlingly the movie seems all about tooting it's own horn where the 3d effect is involved. Some of the final scenes take place in a movie theater SHOWING A 3D MOVIE FOR GOD FUCKING SAKE. It seems to scream "Oh ho! look at these people in the movie, watching a 3D movie and being so impressed. I bet you're impressed to eh? OH LOOK THEY ALL FUCKING DIED! My my, aren't you nervous now?" Its just so oddly insistent on the 3d aspect when there is so little of it in the movie.
Moving on, we come to the violence. Now, Final destination movies are always an odd mix of a snuff film and a slapstick comedy, blending violence with sheerly Goldbergian methods by which to facilitate this violence. Death, in his infinite power, seems never to want to simply kill these kids, no, he wants to make a fucking example of them. Oh, so you thought you escaped me eh? Well how about a flaming mountain lion from space collides with your face and hurls you into the worlds largest blender which then freezes and shatters? Ohhhh take that generic teen number 7. Well the movie keeps with tradition by brutally cleansing the gene pool in the most unreasonable ways possible; sometimes more then once. Yes, this movie has it's fill of dreams and premonitions; one of which brutally murders several people before just shrugging it off and saying "Nah man, just yanking your chain." Its a big, homicidal cock tease. Sadly, several of the imagined deaths are much more Entertaining then the real ones. In one imagined death a girl gets ground up into hamburger meat by a rogue escalator, while her "true" death was to be lamely run over by a truck. I came to watch cinematic fatalities, I want cinematic fatalities damn it.
Lastly is the story, which is worse the usual; an accomplishment that begs explanation. Now, normally the story is pretty shit to begin with; just a thin excuse to murder teens; but this movie rather goes off the deep end. So the kid is given a vision that lets him save himself and his friends. And then his friends and him start dying off as he tries to break the chain. He gets more visions, they think the chain is broken but its actually not, more visions, some fakeouts etc etc. In the end he says "What if we haven't changed anything? What if this is exactly where we were supposed to be?" and then promptly gets hit by a truck. Ok so, all the visions, the deaths, the various bullshit, all of it is rendered completely moot because this is what was planned all along. This begs the question of "why?". Why would death go about such a convoluted and asinine scheme when he could just GIVE THEM FUCKING CANCER?! Its Xanatos Roulette with a semi-personified force of nature for the sake of nothing.
So, did the movie succeed on what it was trying to do? Ehhhhh maybe? The violence and death is there, but the 3d is absent and the story is "Chew my own teeth" bad. So if you just want to see more brutal violence for the sake of brutal violence then you're good. If you want, say, anything else, then you should probably go else where.
First problem is that the 3d falls pretty damn flat on it's ass; 90% of the time you can't even tell you're watching a 3d movie. Don't get me wrong, the whole "Look at this long stick that exists solely to show off the 3d effects" shots aren't my favorite but there seems to be an almost complete lack of dimension; something I expected from the acting, but not from the effects. There are a few nice scenes, some nice blood fountains and a some flying shrapnel, but overall it seems like a movie that had the 3d thrown in at the last second. Puzzlingly the movie seems all about tooting it's own horn where the 3d effect is involved. Some of the final scenes take place in a movie theater SHOWING A 3D MOVIE FOR GOD FUCKING SAKE. It seems to scream "Oh ho! look at these people in the movie, watching a 3D movie and being so impressed. I bet you're impressed to eh? OH LOOK THEY ALL FUCKING DIED! My my, aren't you nervous now?" Its just so oddly insistent on the 3d aspect when there is so little of it in the movie.
Moving on, we come to the violence. Now, Final destination movies are always an odd mix of a snuff film and a slapstick comedy, blending violence with sheerly Goldbergian methods by which to facilitate this violence. Death, in his infinite power, seems never to want to simply kill these kids, no, he wants to make a fucking example of them. Oh, so you thought you escaped me eh? Well how about a flaming mountain lion from space collides with your face and hurls you into the worlds largest blender which then freezes and shatters? Ohhhh take that generic teen number 7. Well the movie keeps with tradition by brutally cleansing the gene pool in the most unreasonable ways possible; sometimes more then once. Yes, this movie has it's fill of dreams and premonitions; one of which brutally murders several people before just shrugging it off and saying "Nah man, just yanking your chain." Its a big, homicidal cock tease. Sadly, several of the imagined deaths are much more Entertaining then the real ones. In one imagined death a girl gets ground up into hamburger meat by a rogue escalator, while her "true" death was to be lamely run over by a truck. I came to watch cinematic fatalities, I want cinematic fatalities damn it.
Lastly is the story, which is worse the usual; an accomplishment that begs explanation. Now, normally the story is pretty shit to begin with; just a thin excuse to murder teens; but this movie rather goes off the deep end. So the kid is given a vision that lets him save himself and his friends. And then his friends and him start dying off as he tries to break the chain. He gets more visions, they think the chain is broken but its actually not, more visions, some fakeouts etc etc. In the end he says "What if we haven't changed anything? What if this is exactly where we were supposed to be?" and then promptly gets hit by a truck. Ok so, all the visions, the deaths, the various bullshit, all of it is rendered completely moot because this is what was planned all along. This begs the question of "why?". Why would death go about such a convoluted and asinine scheme when he could just GIVE THEM FUCKING CANCER?! Its Xanatos Roulette with a semi-personified force of nature for the sake of nothing.
So, did the movie succeed on what it was trying to do? Ehhhhh maybe? The violence and death is there, but the 3d is absent and the story is "Chew my own teeth" bad. So if you just want to see more brutal violence for the sake of brutal violence then you're good. If you want, say, anything else, then you should probably go else where.
