My expectations for "The Final Destination 3D" weren’t high. The New York Times had written: "There used to be entertainment in the dodging and wit in the scripts; now there’s 3-D" and The Boston Globe fumed: "All this third, cheaply rendered dimension contributes is an awareness of how non-dimensional everything else is."
But I’d never been to see a 3D movie before in a proper cinema, so, 3D-glasses on, I got ready for a splattering.
The movie passed in front of my eyes in an instantly forgettable flash. Nothing to do with the uneasiness that screenwriter Eric Bress managed to create with his previous work "The Butterfly Effect" or brain-buzzing twisted ideas to set a death as seen in the "Saw" franchise. Just plain and straightforward Hollywood clichés and old tricks, with really nothing to remember.
The idea is just the same as in the previous movies in the franchise - some teenager has a vision and prevents a certain amount of people from dying in some sort of accident. The movie is about how those people are going to be killed in gruesome ways previously presented to the spectator by the main character’s premonitions.
Nick (Bobby Campo) and his girlfriend Lori (Shantel VanSanten) go to a car race persuaded by their mutual and equally shallow friends Hunt (Nick Zano) and Janet (Haley Webb). Hunt can’t wait to see an accident and, man, does he get to see one. The opening scene, with all those fast cars racing around and the generously used 3D effects, is really catchy and conveniently loud. You get the main points of the whole movie: blunt characters to be killed, the old scheme of anticipation and delay and the new generation 3D effects whizzing in front of your eyes. Unfortunately, the more or less convincing opening scene is the high point.
The ‘premonition’ device repeatedly takes you through the identical concept several times, forcing you to practically watch each scene twice. Nick has a vision and with vibrating music, he runs desperately to try to prevent it. The person to be killed happens to enter in some random scene conveniently packed with explosives and cutting objects. You find yourself thinking, "Oh, man", and shiver and coil on your seat in anticipation of something very nasty and disturbing about to happen until the scene ends with that very same thing that you thought would happen actually happening. After the first three scenes, I got bored of explosions sending sharp or blunt objects right into the characters anatomy at high speeds. And there is no more to it.
Having no real plot and quite unconvincing acting, it is a pity that the accidents are so repetitive. The 3D effects do add some depth to the optics of the picture and the stunt choreographer David Ellis (director) plays with them dramatically. But the final result is that once you get used to the 3D effects and stop grabbing the air trying to touch the subtitles, say, after 30 minutes of movie, it gets very boring.
But focus.
They called it a horror movie, but I think it rather belongs to the arguably new sub-genre of "visually disturbing movies", where no story, acting, coherence or anything at all expected or intended; just good-looking, unconvincing actors being killed in unimaginative yet deeply unpleasant ways in death scenes with very explicit gore.
That in mind, "The Final Destination 3D" is an OK movie, it does succeed at times in sending waves of utter disgust and discomfort down your spine . . . in 3D.
Rating: *
2009. Directed by David R. Ellis. Written by Eric Bress.
