Final Destination 3 (DVD)

Final Destination 3 Review

DIRECTOR: James Wong
YEAR OF RELEASE: 2006
GENRE: Horror
LANGUAGE: English

Main Cast:

Mary Elizabeth Winstead - Wendy Christensen
Ryan Merriman - Kevin Fischer
Kris Lemche - Ian McKinley
Alexz Johnson - Erin Ulmer
Sam Easton - Frankie Cheeks
Jesse Moss - Jason Robert Wise
Gina Holden - Carrie Dreyer
Texas Battle ...
...same became true of the Final Destination franchise when it began in 2000. When the first Final Destination film was launched, the mould was changed slightly and instead of their being a physical killer, it was death itself which would catch up with people. Each of the three films have started with a key protagonist in the film having a premonition of a disaster which is about to take place and they then in some way change the course of action meaning ... more

Final Destination 3 Review

DIRECTOR: James Wong
YEAR OF RELEASE: 2006
GENRE: Horror
LANGUAGE: English

Main Cast:

Mary Elizabeth Winstead - Wendy Christensen
Ryan Merriman - Kevin Fischer
Kris Lemche - Ian McKinley
Alexz Johnson - Erin Ulmer
Sam Easton - Frankie Cheeks
Jesse Moss - Jason Robert Wise
Gina Holden - Carrie Dreyer
Texas Battle - Lewis Romero
Chelan Simmons - Ashley Freund
Crystal Lowe - Ashlyn Halperin
Amanda Crew - Julie Christensen

--The Film Itself--

For many years, the idea of teenagers getting picked off one by one by a maniac killer has been a popular convention in the horror genre. People sit down every day in order to watch popular films of this respect such as Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street, and the same became true of the Final Destination franchise when it began in 2000. When the first Final Destination film was launched, the mould was changed slightly and instead of their being a physical killer, it was death itself which would catch up with people. Each of the three films have started with a key protagonist in the film having a premonition of a disaster which is about to take place and they then in some way change the course of action meaning that lives are saved. In these films 'death' then makes sure that the people that survived the disaster are killed off one by one in the order that they would have died had they been a part of the disaster in the premonition. This film starts fantastically with a rollercoaster accident whereby the rollercoaster derails, killing all those that are on it. As with all of the Final Destination films, the premonition at the beginning of the film causes the protagonist Wendy played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead to panic and get out of the potentially threatening situation along with some of her friends and it is here that the characters begin to get picked off.

If you liked the first two films then there's a strong chance that you may not be too pleased with what you find here. While the first two films I found were well produced and interesting to watch, this third film is really lacking and for me disappointed on every level. James Wong is back as director (director of the first film) and chooses not to reference the events in the second film as it was not directed by him so he considers it not to be a part of the series; however I feel that the second film is probably the best one of the three. The second film changed the mould a bit in that instead of having characters that were friends to begin with, it had a group of individuals that came together because of a horrific car accident and they all teamed together in order to try and avoid their 'final destination', finding clues as to how the next person may die and intervening so that death would skip that person and move onto the next. This film goes back to the original formula, and although it was successful the first time, I feel that it was only successful then as it was doing something different; however this is more of the same and is really quite repetitive and tedious. The acting here is poor, there is no real sense of a storyline or plot, and it just seems to have been produced by James Wong as he knew the market was out there for this franchise so thought he would cash in on this market by producing a below par film, realising that people would go and see it regardless of what sort of press it got due to the past merits of the franchise alone.

Very early on in the film, Ryan played by Kevin Fischer realises what is going on and finds information on the internet about the plane crash in the first film and they realise that the same thing is happening to them, interestingly enough before anyone has even actually died yet. I feel that this was a bad move as there is no way that before anything had actually happened, they would have caught on to what was going on. It just doesn't make sense that they should figure it out at such and early stage in the film and I think that this begins to spoil the film a bit as it is all just too unbelievable. The original idea of the film has been recycled, only this time it is not as good and from early on in the film, flaws can be spotted. In an interesting new twist in the plot of the film, photos taken of people at the start of the film begin to explain where and how they may die. This could have been a great element to the film had it been used to it's full potential, however this interesting concept is wasted and fails to add any sense of excitement to the film, probably as a result of the cardboard acting which is shown throughout the films duration, with no real sense of the cast engaging with their characters and trying to take on the persona of them.

This third film in the series could have been great, as the opening is brilliant with the rollercoaster accident, however from here the film goes downhill and nothing really salvages the bad script and awful acting skills shown. I think James Wong has run out of ideas on what to do with these films so I somehow doubt that there will be a fourth, and if there is then let's just hope that it's not James Wong in the producers chair again and then maybe we can have the situation there was in the second film where a new producer really gave the film a breath of fresh air, improving upon the original product and adding new areas of suspense and excitement into the mix. This film is too much like the original formula, not moving away from this enough and not having a good enough cast to carry the film and make the most of this seen it all before film. The second film deviates in that in the end they work out how to cheat death, and in the first film at the end we have two characters that are still alive and well, one of whom is present in the second film, however here everyone is killed off and it just all feels a little pointless.

I have spoken to many others about this film and like me, they agree that this film is basically not up to much and is by no means anywhere near as good as the first two films were. There are far greater horror films available out there, and as is the case with many of the reoccurring horror favourites, with time ideas are beginning to run low and so the overall product has been compromised meaning that Final Destination really isn't worth your while. If you manage to pick it up cheap, or want to rent it then that is up to you, however my overall opinion would be that you should stay well away from this film as a classic horror flick it is not. The CGI is good and there are some gorey deaths if you're into that kind of thing, however too many people have their heads crushed here and it all seems to get a bit repetitive and tiresome. They seem to have concentrated too much on getting decent CGI for the explosions of blood here rather than coming up with a decent plot line for the film, so unless you're a CGI enthusiast then there's not much to keep you entertained here.

Extras

--Choose Their Fate--

In this mode you get to watch the film as usual, however at crucial parts in the film you get to 'choose their fate' which was one of the main reasons that I bought this DVD as I thought that after a poor theatrical feature, they may have redeemed themselves by allowing you to significantly alter the events in the film. How wrong could I be? You can't really do a lot in this mode, in fact you can change their deaths slightly in some cases, however this is about the only thing that it does. At the start of the film when there is the rollercoaster you get to choose heads of tails when a coin is flipped to see who will go at the front of the rollercoaster and who at the back of the rollercoaster. This could potentially change who dies in the rollercoaster and who survives, however whatever you choose the same thing actually happens however if you choose tails you can hear the character say 'tails…damn' and if you choose heads - guess what, you hear the character say 'heads…damn.' So, this initial 'choose their fate' action doesn't really do a lot, and the changes made continue in this manner where not a lot really happens.

A key change can be seen in that you can actually save Frankie who is played by Sam Easton, however this being the case - the whole film should be altered surely in that if a character is saved from their death then it's meant to move onto the next person and will eventually come back to them when death once again goes full circle, however we do not hear about this character again in the film and is not in the final sequence of the film where all the characters are eventually killed off. So what happened to this character? Are we meant to just assume that he was killed when death came back round again as he is never mentioned again in the film, however the film comes back round and kills others that it initially skips. This is a major flaw in this feature, meaning that the one person you can actually 'change the fate' of and save messes up the film entirely and makes a mockery of the already awful script.

Using this mode you can also see an alternative ending to the film and this would be good if the alternative ending wasn't just as awful as the rest of the film. Instead of cutting to black at the end of the film and leaving you to use your imagination as to what happens to the remaining character Wendy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) as a train can be heard coming hurtling towards her, you see the train hit Wendy and like many of the other character in the film, she explodes in a burst of CGI created blood. I felt this was an extremely tacky end to the film and am just glad they didn't use this ending in the theatrical showing as this really would have been the final nail in the coffin for the film if it had such an awful ending.

So, what could have been a great feature is spoilt and adds to the lows of the film, rather than the potential salvaging of any dignity James Wong had left after creating this film. If others much like I did buy this DVD on the premise that this is going to be a great feature and will return the suspense and excitement of the first two films, boy are they going to be disappointed as this feature really offers no more than a few sequences that were obviously cut as they quite frankly were worse than the rest of the film somehow, and in the case of the Frankie sequence possibly added as an after thought and not very well thought through.

--Feature Commentary by Director and Co-Writer James Wong, Co-Writer Glen Morgan and Director of Photography Robert Mclachlan--

If you're interested in hearing what the people behind this film have to say about he film then this is the feature for you as you get an explanation as to why they chose to include certain things in the film and try to explain the effect that they wanted the different parts of the film to have. I wasn't particularly interested in this feature as I was not particularly interested in 3 men's justification of writing and producing a boring film that is entirely focussed on the gore element and forgetting that when people watch a film they want a storyline to follow as well as the gore as without the storyline, the gore just isn't as interesting as there is no sense of emotional engagement with the character and so when they are picked off, we are not particularly bothered by it as we don't know enough or care enough about the characters to be emotionally effected when the characters are killed.

--It's All Around You - A Look at Death Statistics--

This is a dull cartoon which speaks about death and the beliefs that different people have had about it throughout time. When I saw this listed I guessed it wouldn't be up to much as it didn't sound particularly interesting to me, and this is confirmed by the fact that they are using cartoons as a way of trying to make the feature more interesting than just having someone sat in a room talking about death. For me, this method of making this feature more entertaining didn't really work as it is dull and has nothing to do with the film other than that people die in this film and the film is boring, and this is a feature about death and guess what - it's also boring.

--Kill Shot: The Making of 'Final Destination 3'--

From watching the making of this film it is clear that a lot of time and effort has gone into this film as regards to the make up etc., however it can also be seen that other than that not a lot was done. In this feature, many of the people say that 'People come to see the Final Destination films to see the deaths' and although this may be true, they didn't have to make a film where the deaths were the only things that they put any sort of time and effort into. It is clear that this is an idea that James Wong had in mind when he wrote and directed this film and could be why there is no sense of storyline or narrative progression here; he seems to have over emphasised the factor that people going to see these films will only want to see the deaths and has not considered that as well as wanting to see the deaths in the films, people will also want to see some sort of narrative progression and there is no element of storyline in this film so something that most if not all film watchers are going to be after is not present in this film and as such, the film is not really going to appeal to very many people at all.

From watching the making of this film it is clear that the ending of this film is one thing they got right. It seems that originally they were going to end the film at a ridiculous point in the film where three characters are walking away from the fireworks display. This would have given the film no sense of closure whatsoever and would have meant that the film would have been even more frustrating and lacklustre as to end at this point in the film would have led to many frustrated viewers having broken TVs from where they had thrown their controller through it, and would have left cinemas across the globe popcorn ridden from where frustrated film viewers through their popcorn in disgust at this ending. The alternative ending which is used in the 'Choose Their Fate' feature is also talked about, and again the idea that this would not be a fitting ending for the film is mentioned and the idea that the ending that they stuck with is visceral meaning that after you leave the film you continue to think about it, rather than the leave your brain at home alternative ending for the film.

--Dead teenager Movie - A Look at the Teen Genre--

This is probably one of the best things about this DVD, it is a documentary style featurette about the 'dead teenager movie' genre and is an interesting and insightful feature about the progression of this genre from the early days of films such as Halloween, moving into the present with Final Destination. This is a great piece and if you are interested in teen horror films then you may well find this featurette of interest much like I did. It almost made the money I paid out on this DVD worthwhile. Note; almost, but not quite - I still consider this purchase to have been a bit of a waste of money but there you go, can't really do a lot about that now. At least I have all three in the series now I guess… 

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