A roller-coaster ride of thrills and chills …
It seems like a random thing. You and your best friends visit an amusement park and one of the rides suffers from a mechanical glitch. You watch your friends die like flies, one after the other. But there is nothing you can do. You can’t move. You can’t help them in any way. And soon, you are next. You watch your whole life flash by … and then it’s all over!
That’s basically what Wendy Christensen a.k.a. Mary Elizabeth Winstead goes through, One Line Cinema’s latest play doll in their freaky fun fantasy adventure horror thrill ride where teenagers are lined up only to meet their makers in the most original and gruesome way. If you thought the creators of this pretty original slasher series had run out of fresh ideas … think again!
It’s already the third time in a row, so by now we are quite familiar with the formula. We first witness a terrible disaster claiming dozens of innocent lives, only for it to be nothing more than just some abnormal nightmare episode of a teenager.
Then, of course, disaster strikes and whatever you saw in some crazy daydream soon becomes a sheer reality of grotesque proportions. People start dying in a series of bizarre circumstances … and we love, the audience, love it!
Final Destination 3 does something not many horror sequels managed to accomplish before. It doesn’t suck! It’s actually quite good and most of the time, it’s even a fun thrill-ride that rivals the quality of the previous 2 movies.
What makes Final Destination 3 so bloody good (pardon the pun!) is the fact that some of the murders are very inventive and well-thought of. Especially the tanning sequence and the subtle camera switch from two tanning beds to two graves is is beautifully done.
Also – and this may surprise you as we’re still talking about a horror movie – Final Destination 3 has the very best characters and turn of events of all Final destination movies! You actually care about the characters and you can sympathize with the sadness and desolation of the main character. This little feat alone makes Final Destination 3 perhaps the finest of the entire series …
Unfortunately, it would be the last time a Final destination movie would surprise us in a positive way. Reason why is simple. Parts 4 & 5 are straight-out, stupid slasher movies with the focus on more blood, more gore and a whole lot less story and plausibility. The result is that the final two movies are nothing short of a weak replica of the original trilogy which is, in every single department a whole lot better!
This trend of showing buckets of blood and cheap Hollywood thrills started with Final destination 2 (remember the kid whose eyes were punctured by the fallen ladder?) and continues its downward spiral path deep into Final Destination 3 (believe it or not, but someone’s head is about to explode!).
This is of course to be expected from a horror movie, but the increase of what is obviously fake and something that can never be in reality doesn’t really further the story nor the original premise of the series. Remember the first one? Remember what it was about? Real life situations that we face each and every day which suddenly became mortal weapons of nature striving to take our lives! This idea was pushed to the background in favor of more razzle-dazzle than substance, all of this to quench the blood thirst of a whole generation of popcorn munching horror fanatics.
The disaster scene at the end of the movie – because Final Destination 3 has two! catastrophes – is perhaps even better than the one that kicks off the start of the movie. You’ll end up feeling a bit dazed (or at least more so than you did in the previous movies), because of the credibility and likeability of some of the main players.
A real eye-catcher is the performance of Kris Lemche whom you might recognize (or ‘should’ recognize is more accurate) as the software programmer in the 24-movie. In this movie however, the only programming he’ll be doing is a fight to the death against nature or death itself. His Gothic black hair and somber dress code in combination with his delightful sense of humor and keen understanding of life and death make him one of the most interesting characters of all five movies!
No Tony Todd this time (dammit!) but he does make an appearance by voice. I dare you to find out where he’s hiding, listen well and you’ll immediately recognize his deep, stern voice.
But the lead player is a woman this time, much like the second movie. Actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead delivers a more than convincing performance in what would eventually become her breakthrough movie. One year later, she would stand by her daddy – the vigorous John McClane in Live Free or Die Hard.
Give it to me straight:
Much like its two predecessors, Final destination 3 is so much fun to look at. At times you’ll wonder if this movie is actually the best. Make sure you’ll enjoy it too as it’s the last one of the series worthy of watching. Some of the murders shown in this picture are truly and utterly very well done. The structure of the scene and the creativity of the writers feeds the story beautifully into what ultimately can only be described as a fun and often funny horror movie.
The one department in which Final destination 3 might distance itself from any other movie of the series (perhaps with the exception of the first movie which, of course, started it all) is how everything in the movie seems to have a meaning. Nothing is accidental or just a random thought process. The pictures that were taken, the words that are spoken and the people who make make an appearance in the movie, Final destination 3 really tries to come across as a sequel trying to do better than simply copy the original formula.
It works, because the movie is to die for …
Give it to me short:
Final destination 3 is as much fun – and at times more original in killing off the main cast – than the two previous movies. To label this movie as the best is certainly not as ridiculous as one might think. Of all the protagonists, the girl in the third Final destination movie (the ever beautiful Mary Elizabeth Winstead) brings more to her role than a couple of tear and high-pitched screams. Enjoy this one! It’s the last one to be quite this good …
THE 4TH WALL 