The Final Destination…or is it?

Posted by Movie_Maven

August 31, 2009 |

Being a fan of the first three films in the franchise (one of my guilty pleasures), I actually endeavored to the movies on a Saturday night (GASP) to see this installment. And it was my birthday so I got free popcorn too.

Aside from the requisite weekend-opener-annoyances and crowds (like the jerks behind me who wouldn’t stop talking and the moronic parents who brought a young child) to a horror flick, I walked away from the movie with some mixed feelings.

First of all, it seemed to me that the filmmakers were trying too hard. After all, there are 11 deaths in this movie - more than any of its predecessors - and all jam-packed into a mere 82 minutes. Unfortunately, this left little room for any significant (or even superficial) character development. Yeah, yeah, I know that the series is not known for identifying the underlying motivations for the characters; however, this movie had none. Zero. Zilch. I also wanted to know how a group of 20-somethings who didn’t appear to work for a living were able to live in such nice places, wear nice clothes, plan trips to Europe, and drive nice vehicles…trust fund, perhaps. Final Destination, 90210 perhaps?

At any rate, I would have liked to have seen this film in 3-D. Then the special effects would have, undoubtedly, been better. The overtness of the intention of this film as a 3-D vehicle was very apparent. In 2-D; however, some of the CGI effects, particularly at the beginning during the race, were grainy and poorly edited.

Another problem was the poor acting. I was especially disappointed to see Mykelti Williamson and wondered what propelled him to take this role (he’ll always be Bubba in ‘Forrest Gump’ to me!!) I was equally disappointed to see him die as well. Come on people, you KNOW what’s going to happen so that statement is hardly a spoiler. He did have one particularly funny scene and some of the dialogue was pretty funny (I laughed especially hard at the tampon reference.) There was also no lack of cliches, puns or innuendos and many references to the earlier films. Oh, and of course, the potential for yet another sequel.

At any rate, while I was a little disappointed, the film was entertaining and, after all, isn’t that why we go to the movies?