Final Destination 3

Official Final Destination 3 Site
Horror
Starring:Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ryan Merriman
Rated R (for language, some strong sexual content/brief nudity, mild violence)
Running Time: 93 Minutes
Released:February 10th, 2006


1 Out Of 5 Bites

With this deplorable installment, the filmmakers perpetuate the lie that you never finally arrive at a suitable destination...not the first or the second time, and with this latest attempt, a death on the cutting room floor would have sufficed.

In its defense, the original in the series played upon some really palpable physical and emotional scenarios, i.e., that the fact you can't ever really outrun death has a taxing toll on those who attempt it. We can "get" that the first time, but to hoist a trilogy on the concept inevitably dwindles into nothing more than a blood-festive free-for-all in the race to depict the mulitiplicity of ways a teenager's body can be mutilated, disemboweled, chopped and/or crushed. Virtually anything that exists just might be the what does in each unsuspecting victim. Sometimes the way the person is going to die is foreshadowed way too early. But who cares, as long as you get to watch?

Glen Morgan and James Wong return from their hiatus in FD2 to direct the gore, which begins on a roller coaster ride gone impossibly amuck, cast as a premonition seen by Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Her photos of the night at the carnival/fair/amusement park become the means whereby the future victims' demise will be predicted.

Shortly into the 93 minute debacle, one becomes aware that, for most who'll find themselves there, the only real reason to be in the theater while the film is projecting is that: 1) you'll see some grisly deaths; 2) you'll almost certainly see unnecessary nudity and, 3) did I mention gruesome deaths? Since neither of these reasons amounted to anything sufficiently compelling to either see it or remain, the moviegoer will know what it is into which they are entering. And this brings me to the reason why I saw it: to gain some more insight into the thanatophilia, or death-love, that runs rampant in our culture.

Cinema offers ways to enter as close to the things we have feared or been fascinated with the most. Much has and will be said in evaluating the perpetual effect of being consistently exposed to graphic displays of death and sex in our culture. This is just one film in a litany of many past and many more to come to exploit what has become a somewhat fetishistic pasttime....to participate in as many detailed depictions of death as possible, as relayed by one's media of choice. Some of this is not by conscious choice, but it is hard to account for the public craving for such. Either the producers are giving what we want or they are imposing upon us what they think we want....or, worse, what they want us to want.

But beyond that, the film is prankishly infantile with some patently annoying performances by twenty-somethings acting like they are teenies. For most, it will just merely choke on its voyeuristic vomitus, unless you own a copy of Return To Horror High and have it's theme song as a ringtone on your cell phone. In such a case, rush- don't walk- to see FD3.