The Final Destination Review

Published by Jeff Leins on: August 30th, 2009

Much like the title, The Final Destination is more of the same from a tired series of gore and gimmicks.  If you’ve seen any of the three Final Destination movies, you’re already aware of the franchise’s formula.  If you haven’t seen them, then there’s no reason to start now.

The fourth installment employs the once clever game of “Mouse Trap for Sadists,” a Rube Goldberg style sequence of unfortunate coincidences ending with another meaningless offing.  Dominoes are in full effect, but here when the last one falls someone has to clean up a bloody mess.

This time around David R. Ellis (who directed part 2 and Snakes on a Plane) tosses in another trick with the use of 3-D.  Objects fly from the screen, but none of them pop with any additional enjoyment (unless this is your first three-dimensional flick).  It’s an unimaginative device for cheap thrills and inflated ticket prices.

The otherwise plotless episode rehashes the familiar premise: a group of teenagers escape a horrific disaster through inexplicable premonition only for the Grim Reaper to catch up to them one by one.  By now the novelty is gone, as the sequel goes through the motions of cheating certain doom and then meeting it in the end.

Instead of a plane, 18-wheeler, or roller coaster crash, the chain of events starts with a NASCAR collision this time.  Still a fiery catastrophe of death and destruction, only with a red state nuance.

Thanks to a spooky feeling, several race fans leave early and survive the spectacle.  Nick (Bobby Campo) is the lucky kid gifted with the ability to witness this movie hitting the fan, so he saves himself and three nondescript friends.  Through the visions Nick grabs convenient clues of a puzzling future, and it’s only a matter of time before everything plays out in gruesome fashion.

A vengeful redneck perpetuates stereotypes about racist hillbillies at NASCAR races.  His death kick starts the casualties as the Grim Reaper stalks the crash survivors and the movie is on track to where it has been three times before.

The rest of the plot is just an inevitable series of executions set up by ominous signs of more bloodshed.  Ellis even uses the “it’s all just a (day)dream” gimmick to pack in more violence for what may or may not actually happen.  Most of the scenes were given away in the trailer, but I still had to stifle a laugh at a deadly carwash and the helpless victim literally being cleaned to death.  As for a pool scene, I hope proper credit was given to Chuck Palahniuk and his short story “Guts” because this movie more than borrows from it.

(On a slightly related note: Isn’t it time to retire the “MILF” acronym?  It was coined 10 years ago in American Pie and has ceased to be funny.  Let it go, frat guys and unoriginal screenwriters.)

While the first film may have been a grisly stab at fate or destiny, The Final Destination is a joyless remake with an almost identical story, a total lack of scares, and a line-up of predictable kills.  If you like watching people die, maybe this is your movie.  Or maybe you need to have your head examined.

2 out of 5.