Directed by David R. Ellis.
2009. Rated R, 82 minutes.
Cast:
Bobby Campo
Shantel VanSanten
Nick Zano
Mykelti Williamson
Haley Webb
Krista Allen
Andrew Fiscella
Justin Wellborn
Once again, a lucky teen, but really unlucky, has a premonition about a catstrophic accident that will kill him and all his friends, plus countless others. He gets all frantic and gets himself and said friends kicked out of the event they’re attending. In this case, it’s an auto race. Feeling cheated, Death itself hunts the survivors down one by one int the order in which they would’ve died had things gone according to plan. If you’ve seen any of this movie’s three predecessors then you know this set-up well. It’s exactly the same throughout the franchise. Why this isn’t called Final Destination 4 escapes me.
The problem with this franchise, this movie in particular, is no one has found a way to inject any creativity whatsoever into the storyline since the original. Essentially, we get the same movie once again. What was once, very recently, fresh for the genre has quickly become trite. If you’ve seen one, you’ve almost literally seen them all. The creative forces behind the FD franchise make the people behind the Friday the 13th movies seem Shakespearian by comparison.
Why watch such a movie? There’s really only one reason: the kill scenes. This is the only area in which we see any creativity whatsoever. The early deaths are a disappointment because they’re too cartoonish. That’s because the special fx are pretty weak in this particular version. You can see it straining to be a 3D movie as it was theatrically released. Unfortunately, I saw it in plain old 2D and the result in underwhelming.
However, all is not lost. Even though one of the later deaths mimics one that was done in the original, the kills get better as the movie goes on. The death-by-escalator scene might be among the most amazing murders the DTM genre has ever committed. By the way, thank famed critic Roger Ebert for the term DTM: Dead Teenager Movie.
It’s all pretty simple. If you like FD movies, this is right up your alley. If you don’t, skip it. You’re not missing anything special.
The Opposite View: Derek Elley, Variety
What the Internet Says: 4.9/10 on imdb.com (8/1/10), 27% on rottentomatoes.com, 30/100 on metacritic.com
MY SCORE: 4.5/10
SCORE VS. OTHER FD MOVIES: 6/10
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