Starring: Bobby Campo, Shantel VanSanten, Nick Zano, Haley Webb, Mykelti Williamson
Director: David R. Ellis
Writer: Eric Bress
Cinematography: Glen MacPherson
Original Score: Brian Tyler
Running Time: 82 Mins.
Is The Final Destination a good film? Well what do you think! Now we have cleared that little one up let me go on to say you will likely derive some mild enjoyment from this, the fourth Final Destination no less, if you were a fan of the past 3 because let’s face it these films were only ever designed for one thing and one thing only, to display the most “ingenious” ways of killing of a group of attractive tennagers in the most entertaining way possible, with this in mind I would probably put Final Destination 3 down as the best installment for sheer bloodlust.
However, should you like your horror film to have a little originality or even remotely likeable characters that are played by actors that can, at the very least, act, or a script that is ever so slightly witty, or at the very least scary…surely a mst for a horror film? You will likely derive little enjoyment from The Final Destination (even in 3D the characters have no more depth!).but should you wish to literally wish to sit in the cinema and literally switch your brain off for glossy totally computer game-y kills, well you are in for a treat.
Easily the weakest in the series thus far The Final Destination inexplicably seeks to re-boot the franchise with a rehash of every film to come before, on release of the first film (which I might add was a solid horror containing all the above elements) there was an element of mystery to the deaths, and it was a film that seemed about mystery rather than a slasher film without a slasher as such. Now the series has devolved into a slasher film without a slasher and literally no attempt to move the story on, even the meekest plot development would be welcome, instead we get the obligatory “big” accident at the beginning, followed by the escape followed by each death played out as though it were the comedy sketch show of horror films.
Thankfully some of the death’s are cleverly played out but when you care nothing for said victim’s it all feels rather flat, something which the introduction of 3D to the series can’t hide. Once again it is employed as a gimmick to squirt you with blood and throw the odd spanner towards you, hardly revolutionary as horror films were doing this back in the 80’s…and look what happened to 3D then.
On watching film’s like The Final Destination I do enter the cinema with very low expectations, though I do at the very least hope to derive some enjoyment from the experience, thankfully this wouldn’t qualify for complete and utter waste of time status but given my decidedly low expectations I should have left feeling slightly more fulfilled, at least in terms of bloodlust, maybe next time they should start with an original plot rather than a literal rehash with slighlty different deaths…but it’s unlikely!
VERDICT
Low expectations are a must, and the knowledge that The Final Destination is simply a retread of Final Destinations 1 to 3, though even if you expect this at the very least you won’t help but feel slightly robbed at being given a pair of 3D glasses over any sense of plot or character.
Movieblaze 