Massawyrm says THE FINAL DESTINATION beats James Cameron to the punch by #*$%ing your eyeballs AND your wallet!
Published at: Aug. 28, 2009, 8:43 a.m. CST by merrick
Hola all. Massawyrm here.
You know, I wasn’t even going to see this movie. Being that I am in the slim minority of folks who loves Rob Zombie movies, I’d chosen to see HALLOWEEN 2 over this. But when it came time to buy the tickets, one movie was at the shitty theater across town and the other was showing in 4K digital at the Drafthouse around the corner from my house. Come on, 4k Digital 3D at the Drafthouse? That’s why God invented Thursday nights. Sadly, this is also the same God who created herpes, explosive diarrhea and Freddy Prinze Jr. movies. Guess which end of the spectrum THE FINAL DESTINATION is on?
What is easily the most tedious film I’ve seen all year, if not ever, THE FINAL DESTINATION is everything a FINAL DESTINATION film shouldn’t be. The effects are embarrassing, the kills even worse and every scene plays out exactly the same. I never thought they could make a film that would make me pine for either FINAL DESTINATION 3 or MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D, but David R. Ellis managed to do both in one, single masterstroke of failure. This thing is a mess and a complete boondoggle on all fronts.
It almost feels like a bad FRIDAY THE 13TH movie, except that it actually feels closer to what a bad knock off of a FRIDAY THE 13TH movie feels like. There is nothing redeeming about it. It is cheap, populated by actors who seem relatively unconvinced of what is going on around them and lacks even a whiff of imagination. Even the 3-D, the one gimmick you think might save this from being a complete and utter void actually proves to be the movie’s downfall. Remember, David R. Ellis is the guy that made the one, truly solid FINAL DESTINATION film. The gore in part 2 is incredible; from the huge fuck all car crash at the beginning to almost each and every death in the film - solid blood and gore was delivered throughout. But here, because everything was going to be in spectacular 3-D, none of the effects are practical. They’re digital. Bad, digital blood and splatter effects. You feel me? Are they in 3-D? Yes. Do they ever look remotely convincing? Never.
And that’s the ultimate failing of the film, because at this point in the series, no one making these things gives a shit about anything BUT the kills. Starting with the last film (FINAL DESTINATION 3), the films ceased unraveling mystery and mythology and became slasher films that simply completely lacked a slasher. The killer is Death, who inexplicably keeps warning douchebags that they’re going to die so they can in turn warn a bunch of people meaning Death has to pull some overtime cleaning up after the ones he missed. Meanwhile, said douchebag gets visual warnings of how death is going to kill everyone else just before it happens so we can have a tense scene of our heroes running to warn our victim before our victim gets splattered in some grisly accident. But here, the accident's aren't so much grisly as they are just quick and sad.
Watching each of the film’s money shots has ceased to be about seeing something clever or interesting and more about the sheer boredom of knowing what’s coming. Part 3 suffered from having to watch a complicated Rube Goldberg machine play out before our eyes while we waited for it to finally get around killing the victim. This time Ellis shakes it up by offering up a bunch of red herrings - each more mundane and ridiculous than the red herring before it - until he finally gets around to gutting our victims with terrible fucking digital effects that my Golden Retriever and an Amiga loaded with Video Toaster could probably duplicate.
But in 3D!!!
This thing is Shi-tty. They even go so far as to fill the film with FRIDAY THE 13TH 3-D style gimmicks like radio antennas that stick out of the screen, flipping coins and shit like that. It’s pathetic, boring and more than just a little sad. This is the very epitome of a series on its last legs, shaking every last penny from its audience before setting them back down and shamefully walking away with its head down, refusing to look back or make eye contact with them. This better be THE FINAL DESTINATION, because I can’t imagine how in the bloody fuck they could make something worse. One of the very worst things you will see all year, this should be avoided at all costs.
You’d think the guy that made SNAKES ON A PLANE might actually have made a fun bad movie. But, no. He didn't.
Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.
Massawyrm