[The Final Destination 3-D]
Plot:On what should have been a fun-filled day at the races, Nick O'Bannon has a horrific premonition in which a bizarre sequence of events causes multiple race cars to crash, sending flaming debris into the stands, brutally killing his friends and causing the upper deck of the stands to collapse on him. When he comes out of this grisly nightmare Nick panics, persuading his girlfriend, Lori, and their friends, Janet and Hunt, to leave... escaping seconds before Nick's frightening vision becomes a terrible reality.

Thinking they've cheated death, the group has a new lease on life, but unfortunately for Nick and Lori, it is only the beginning. As his premonitions continue and the crash survivors begin to die one-by-one--in increasingly gruesome ways--Nick must figure out how to cheat death once and for all before he, too, reaches his final destination.

Cast:Krista Allen, Andy Fiscella, Shantel VanSanten, Bobby Campo, Hayley Webb, Justin Welborn, Nick Zano, Mykelti Williamson, Aurielle Brimmer, Richard T. Jones.

My Thoughts:They've run out of ideas, but it's still fun as hell all the same.

Review:"The Final Destination" is the fourth entry into the series which began way back in the year 2000, when a group of suburban kids cheated death by stepping off a plane to Paris, and were never the same again after that. Then again, they were also never a lot of things after that. Like still physically attached, alive, breathing, etc. Well, except for two of them, and we all know what happened to Alex and Clear after the first film. While this is part four, and I'm sure you're asking yourself right now..."Christ! Are these frikkin teenagers ever gonna learn that you can't cheat death without suffering severe consequences?!"

You have to atleast appreciate that fact that in a nine year span, they've only released four of these films. We could have six by now. Luckily, we don't. So atleast they're thinking these movies through before they come out with the next sequel. However, "The Final Destination", which was presented in 3-D to give the film an extra punch, and also to appease fans who were expecting the third film to be in 3-D but never had their promise fulfilled, proves two things. One, they are definitely out of ideas. And two, these movies are still a TON of fun. This installment has more teenagers finding their own little way to piss off death.

This time death is looking to claim some new V-I-C-T-I-M-S at a local nascar race. However as usual, someone screws up his plans by getting one of those pesky premonitions, and thus alerting their friends that basically, they've gotta get the hell out of dodge or suffer the bloody and painful consequences. This time, it's a guy, unlike part three, where Wendy was the premonition catalyst. So this guy, Nick, gets the premonition, and let me just add..his premonition includes the obligatory huge opening death sequences where people are splattered all over the place.

But "TFD" wins the award for WORST OPENING SEQUENCE DEATH. Yes my friends, this series has gone three whole movies riding it's opening demise as it's top weapon in it's vast arsenal. But this time, they done fucked up. Because this one, absent a nasty little demise where a girl is squashed by a flying tire, this opening death sequences is the worst by far. It's cool-looking from a visual standpoint in 3-D and all, but it doesn't score high on the carnage-o-meter. It didn't have the sharp violence of part 2's highway pileup, nor the tragic realism of part ones plane accident. And it lacked the breath-taking suspense of part 3's rollercoaster disaster.

At any rate, Nick sees the crash before it happens, and manages to get himself, his woman, some of their friends, and some other stragglers which include a racist redneck, his wife, a security guard named George, and Samantha the MILF, a mother of two, all caught up in the mayhem which leads to their escape before the ill-fated nascar race goes tragic and kills a bunch of people. So now death does it's thing, and starts hunting down these unaware people and picking them off in a gruesome fashion. So do the deaths measure up to the deaths in part 3?

Well yes, and no. Part 3's highlights post-coaster-crash were the nailgun death of Erin, Lewises weight-room death, and Franky's drive-thru demise. This movie starts off the chain of killing with a pretty lame death involving a tow-truck, but then redeems itself by delivering the next kill via a bad pun. This movie gives us good deaths, and bad ones. Back to back. One moment, there's a good death, then that's followed up with a really crappy one. And then after that, another good death. But because the writers have obviously run out of ways to kill people, they've made up for that with some cool "Torque"-esque visuals of cra motors and pipes when the lead guy Nick gets a premonition of someone's death.

A visual flash trick similar to Wendy's "Polaroid" flashes in part 3. The rules in this film have also been changed. Seems that death, unlike in the previous films, gets a bit greedy and starts trying to take out people in two's simultaneously, rather than just one by one in a separate scene. Can't blame him though, with football season right around the corner, I'm sure he wants to collect the escapees of his wrath as quickly as possible. New rules of the "game", also include some reverse premonitions where death acts sort of like a chess player, moving the kids into a position where he can collect them while allowing them to think they have control of the situation and can save their friends.

And also multiple premonitions coming too late for some people to be saved. Something which we saw a hint of in part three where Wendy gets the subway premonition late and ends up dead at the end. Speaking of Wendy, this film has no mentions of her in the homage category, but it does mention Mckinley, and surprisingly Clear Rivers as well. The deaths follow the usual patterns of squashing, eye-smashing, crushing, burning, that sort of thing. But like I said above, creative and elaborate like the previous movies...these deaths in "TFD" are not.

The films finale is very quick-paced and action-packed though, and the twist ending does break the rules but it works because it's so outrageous and chuckle-worthy. Yes, they are running out of new, fresh, inventive, and elaborate ways to kill people. But the filmmakers still found a way to make "The Final Destination" fun and entertaining. And at this point, that's what you're paying for when you see one of these movies in 2009 as opposed to a few years ago.

Positives:The movie makes up for it's lack of great kills with some fun and action-packed drama and high-octane scenes. There are two deaths in particular which are pretty good, one being the tire-squash. Not gonna spoil the other one. The ending is pretty funny, and the George character has a funny bit involving suicide. The original score was also very awesome, despite missing the touch of the late Shirley Walker, who did the music for the last film.

Negatives:The kills for the most part, seemed lazily thought-up. Too much rule changing in this film when it comes to the scenario of escaping death, and one death of a character was a rehash of a death from way back in part 1. Not good at all.

Overall:Three stars out of four.





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