Life sucks and then Death comes chasing after you – ‘The Final Destination’ Review…

Posted on September 9, 2009 - 2:13am by michael Remember that scene at the beginning of The Goonies when Chunk shows up to the house and they set off that elaborate chain reaction in the front yard with the bowling ball and the tubes and wires and planks of wood and the boot on a stick and the balloon popping that scared the chicken into laying an egg which rolled down and caused the gate to open? Or all that machinery that Doc Brown had set up to make his breakfast and feed his dog at the beginning of Back to the Future? That’s what all the death scenes in the dubiously titled The Final Destination are like. The series has been basically an exercise in coming up with creative death scenes from the very beginning so this is to be expected, but by now they're so outlandish and so preposterous that it’s almost impossible not to groan and let out an “oh please” every time someone finally arrives at their proverbial final destination. As if this wasn’t abundantly clear in Part 3, the whole "Final Destination" concept is absolutely stone dead by now. But, luckily for director David Ellis and a whole stream of no-name 20-something actors, we have the pointless distraction of 3D that serves as the single excuse for latching yet another sequel onto the ailing franchise, which has been on a precipitous downhill since Part 2 which, coincidentally, was Ellis’s first directing work in the series. It’s been some years since I saw Part 3, but the thing that I remember most vividly was how irritating it got listening to the characters constantly rattling on about Death’s design this and Death’s design that, so thankfully that was gone this time. Instead, the premonition that took place at the beginning of the movie is now replaced by a premonition before every death scene, which at least seems to make the targets harder for Death to reach, although not so much that you will experience much in the way of surprise. [caption id="attachment_54267" align="alignleft" width="404" caption="The cast. The guy on the right is Nick. The rest are interchangeable."][/caption] So here’s the plot in 100 words - - -  Just kidding. Like it would really take 100 words to describe the carbon copied plot that you’ve already seen in three movies before. Guy foresees his and his friends’ deaths, they narrowly escape, and spend the next 76 minutes trying to get out of line for a grisly demise. It would help if the Final Destination movies weren’t just some creative but idiotic death scenes strung along a meaningless thread of a story, or at least had a single interesting character. There is, however, at least an interesting actor – Mykelti Williamson, best known as Bubba from Forrest Gump, lends his star power and considerable talent to the movie, but his character, like pretty much the rest of the movie, is so badly written that it’s really a shame to see an actor of his caliber appear in it. [caption id="attachment_54268" align="alignright" width="367" caption="Best if I don't explain what caused this little incident. It must be seen to be believed."][/caption] He provides something of an anchor of reality to counterbalance the teenagers’ wild stories about Death’s relentless pursuit, but then when it comes his turn in line to die, he gives up so quickly and so completely that, get this, he spends an entire day trying – and failing – to kill himself! His resulting aura of total, penetrating incompetence I think should just be chalked up to dumb-ass screenwriting and left at that. Am I being too harsh? Such a thing does represent unusually bad screenwriting, doesn’t it? Or is it just me? Ok, how about this. The opening scene of the movie shows a catastrophic wreck at a Nascar race where flaming cars go flying into the audience with such velocity that they not only disintegrate a large portion of the audience members but nearly take down the entire venue. Our “heroes” escape the carnage with seconds to spare, and the next day, while sitting in a bar one of them blurts this beauty of a line – “Can we just try to forget about it?” [caption id="attachment_54269" align="alignleft" width="365" caption="Ok I got it. It was Colonel Mustard, in the Car Wash, using the Sun Roof as the murder weapon. Right? Right?"][/caption] Sure. Done. I don’t remember seeing 52 people dismembered by flaming vehicular meteors before our very eyes yesterday. Do you? How about this crazy weather we’re having? Ok, I’ll be serious. In the movie’s defense, I will admit that it was well over 15 minutes into the thankfully diminutive running time before I was thoroughly bored. It was the barber shop scene, specifically, that set off the eye-glazing for me. So check this out. A woman going in for a hair-cut comes to within inches of death no fewer than three different ways in a matter of two or three minutes, which is unusual even for such a dangerous environment as a hair salon. This perked up my finely tuned idiocy radar for the rest of the movie, which may have been what ruined it all for me. [caption id="attachment_54270" align="alignright" width="428" caption=""But wait, what if death's whole plan was to lure us into this particular, specific location just to strike us dead with a bolt of lightning? Oh, the irony!!""][/caption] If you’re ever trapped in your car in the car wash, for example, and you discover that your vehicle is filling up with water, don’t stick your head through the malfunctioning sunroof. Try opening a door. You'll find a little lever right there to your left. Just pull it on towards you and push the door slightly away, and sit back and relax as all that water is replaced with cool, breathable oxygen. And how do you not see a speeding ambulance coming? And how does a speeding ambulance not see two people casually strolling across the road in front of it? Don’t even get me started on the swimming pool drain or what the mysterious barrels marked “Spontaneously Combustible” were doing in the movie theater. [caption id="attachment_54271" align="alignleft" width="244" caption=""Dammit you punk kids, I don't have time for this crap!""][/caption] I know, I’m nitpicking. It’s just that this movie is a train wreck on so many levels that I feel it’s my responsibility to describe them for you before you waste your time watching it. But if you’re into the whole 3D gimmick, hey, go check it out. It’s probably fun just for that, although I didn’t see it in 3D myself so I don’t really know. At the very least, it’s pretty obvious from the outset that the third sequel in a series like this is not going to offer much of anything new, so none of us really have any right to feel cheated anyway. But premonitions before every death? Really? That’s it? Why couldn’t someone escape death twice? Or three or four times, even? You know, they survive the opening disaster, become a target of Death, and then escape when their turn to die comes? Wouldn’t it be fun if some girl kept escaping Death over and over and Death kept getting madder and madder until the Grim Reaper himself appeared and started cussing her out about how hard his job already is? I’m telling you, man, there’s room for comedy in the inevitable “Five-nal Destination!” The Bean Meter [caption id="attachment_54272" align="aligncenter" width="110" caption="1.5 Beans out of 5."][/caption]