Final Destination 3 DVD > Reviews > Is this really the Final Destination now?

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Liked it
Story	Very ordinary
Characters / Performances	Unmemorable
Special Effects	Good
How does it compare to similar films?	Satisfactory

Advantages:	More blood and gore
Disadvantages:	Too similar to the first

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Yet again we embark on another Final Destintion adventure, this time cleverly called Final Destination 3!!

I did actually quite enjoy this film but I watched it a friends house as he had a copy and I don't think I would run out and buy it as I probably wouldn't ever watch it again.

The actual idea of all the Final Destination films, in that it replaces the character of a killer/monster with death itself, i do find quite inovative and most of the death scenes, although orchestrated by the 'Death' character, do seem a bit more realistic because they all seem to be accidents and things that could happen in every day life (Put it this way - I'm never going on a sun bed again!....)

If you havent seen the other two films then I wouldn't recommend seeing this one until you have, as although it does refer to the past two films a bit, I think you would understand it a bit more if you had.

Final Destination 2 managed to actually improve upon its original with better death scenes, a bit more action and suspense, and a more thought-provoking plot but Final Destination 3 seemed to revert back to the first one a bit and only changing small parts, such as the relevance of the photos. (I don't want to give away too much to spoil it if you're going to watch it!)

The story starts off, as in the other two films, with Wendy (the main female character - played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead) having a premonition of a rollercoaster going off the tracks, leading to the death of Wendy's boyfriend and several others. However, when Wendy realises she has predicted the catastrophe, she tries to get the others off before it's too late. As in the first one, a handful of people get off and watch as the rollercoaster does infact come off the tracks and realise that they have survived. Then Wendy and Kevin (played by Ryan Merriman), Wendy's boyfriend's best friend, who got off the rollercoaster, realise what was going on (a little too soon) after reading newsclippings from the first and second film's deaths. After a while though, they start to die in gruesome accidents.

Although this was as similar as the first, I still found it quite an enjoyable film, with a mixture of suspense and gruesome deaths even though it was tarnished a bit with poor acting and a fairly poor script. There was also the obvious 'boy meets girl' scenario in that Wendy and Kevin didn't even like each other at the beginning of the film and then ended working together and becoming great friends.

If you don't like watching films about people being killed in horrible, disgusting ways, then I wouldn't recommend watching this film as the death scenes are pretty much what it is all about (so I won't ruin it by going into detail about the best bits!)

On the DVD version of this film, you can actually watch it in two different ways - either by watching the original, as it was made, or by selecting the 'The choice is yours' version. In this version, the film starts off in exactly the same way but at various points throughout the film, you have the choice - It's only ever out of 2 choices - and the choices you make usually decides whether or not someone dies, and how they die. You don't know what you are selecting, it's literally like picking 'heads' or 'tails' but it does make watching the film a bit more enjoyable as you feel like you have control over who dies! Then you can go back through the film and watch it the original way to see what was different.

Other actors in this film include:

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)

Maggie Ma (Perry Malowinski)

Ecstasia Sanders (Amber Regan)

Jody Racicot (Bludworth)

Patrick Gallagher (Colquitt)

Approximate Running Time - 93 Mins
Classification - 15
Directed by - James Wong

 

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