FD4 in 3D -- Death doesn't miss a trick
Written: Sep 02 '09 (Updated Sep 15 '09)
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Product Rating:
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| Bang For The Buck |
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Pros: True to its formula. Excellent effects and production values - especially in 3D.
Cons: True to its formula. You sort of know how it will end.
The Bottom Line: Another demonstration of You Can't Cheat Death. Survivors of a race car pile-up worry that they are on borrowed time.
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| sussmanbern's Full Review: The Final Destination |
THE FINAL DESTINATION is the fourth entry in a series that began with FINAL DESTINATION (without THE) -- and I will refer to these as FD1, FD2, FD3, and this one (with THE) as FD4. I find them all enjoyable. I reviewed the DVD version of FD3, which had some impressive only-DVD features. This time I saw FD4 in a theater equipped for 3D, and it's really something.
I am ancient enough to remember the first 3D theatrical movies and they were relatively primitive compared to the quality of this film. I don't know the technical details but "Real D Cinema", the technology used here, is a definite improvement on the old methods. It seems that 3D is going to be a steady option for many movies, including the Pixar type cartoons, because producers and theaters are eager to offer something that positively cannot be done on the small screen. For all I know, some of the camera shots in the 3D version were differently done for the old fashioned flat version, because some of the images only make sense in three dimensions.
The Final Destination franchise, which can arguably go on forever, like the James Bond movies, is a very simple formula: A bunch of teenagers or twenty-somethings are about to do something (1. fly to Paris, 2. merge onto the Interstate, 3. ride a roller coaster, and 4. watch a Nascar type race), when one of them has some sort of vision of everything going wrong and everyone being killed, that person becomes almost hysterical and manages to drag some friends and non-friends away from what was about to happen, and then the foreseen disaster strikes and everyone who didn't leave with the central character is killed. Gee, thanks to the premonition they have cheated Death. However, Death is a very sore loser. The rest of this paragraph is a SPOILER: Except they didn't cheat death. Each of the survivors is killed off in imaginative and convoluted ways (a little water dripping on something electrical usually starts a very improbable chain of events). That's it. That's the whole formula. The interesting things about each movie are the efforts these people make to avoid being killed, how close they come to various accidents-in-the-making, and finally how they are dispatched (usually a surprise and very bloody).
FD4 has eleven such deaths, the highest so far of the franchise. A hint: It sometimes helps, in the sense of making it more entertaining, not to know how certain machines really work (gee, are all hospitals built so flimsy?).
With the possible exception of Mykelti Williamson, as a raceway guard, the cast are entirely unknowns. While the previous films were mostly done in Canada, this one was done in Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi.
If there is a change to formula, it might be that, in this film, the survivors were intending to be stationary in bleachers instead of on some conveyance, and Tony Todd (who played a morgue attendant in FD1 and FD2, and provided the voice of the roller coaster barker in FD3) isn't in this movie at all. The first movie involved a Flight 180, and the number 180 appears at some point in every movie in the franchise.
This franchise does not have a visible villain, like Freddy Kruger or Jason Vorhees. But it's very imaginative within its formula. Presumably they can keep cranking out FD movies for decades to come. Understand the genre and you won't feel disappointed. This movie is not for the squeamish or easily frightened -- a fact that the couple who brought their four year old and sat two rows behind me will undoubtedly discover. It runs 82 minutes and includes a very brief (and expendable) nude scene; rated R and for good reason.
I would be curious to see what features are offered with the DVD version. In the meantime, if suspense with gore appeals to you, this is a very satisfying flick. (If you see this in 3D, keep the glasses; they cost something and you can have fun experimenting with the polarized lenses.)
Recommended:
Yes
Movie Mood: Scary Movie
Viewing Method: Other
Film Completeness: Looked complete to me.
Worst Part of this Film: Nothing
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sussmanbern
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