Destination finale 4

The Final Destination series is another guilty cinematic pleasure, similar to the Saw series, the Hostel films and before that, the Friday 13 and "Nightmare" movies.

It has been two years since "The Final Destination" hit movie screens and it now plays fairly often on premium channels such as HBO or Encore. This movie and the series in general differs from other horror movies such as the Scream series in that the predator "Death" is unseen. All of the FD movies follow the same general premise: a group of teens escapes from death in a catastrophe only to have "death" follow them (you can't escape your destiny, right?).

Each successive movie offers new and spectacular ways for good-looking young people to die. TFD starts out at a NASCAR type race, which is a social comment: the underlying reason many people go to such races is for the possibility of a violent and spectacular crash. Yet a soulful young man has a premonition that there will be mayhem and guides his three friends and a small pack of hangers-on to safety.

The spectacular crash happens and "Death's" methodical predation of the survivors begins. To discuss the various ways people die would court spoilers but the writers of TFD put some wonderful humorous touches in what is a very taut and lean script (one of the complaints about the movie is that it is too short). A young mother has her two boys put tampons in their ears to protect their hearing from the loud stock car engines, for example. In another scene, a racist stalks the black security guard from the car race and during the mayhem that ensues, the War song "Why can't we be friends?" plays on the radio.

Some reviewers lament the lack of character development in TFD, but they're missing the point. Most of the characters are either caricatures (the racist, the angry redneck, the cowboy) or eye candy (the four core teenagers who try to thwart death). The most interesting main character is Hunt, the roguish, sexy blond young alpha male. A sequence at a pool involving Hunt is one of the most clever and ironic in the entire movie. Without giving too much away, let's say that Hunt's problems start when he tries to retrieve a treasured "lucky" coin.

TFD also contains a clever "movie within a movie" scene. The script also contains symbolism for coins, water, and America's love affair with the car. Admittedly these are nuances that the average moviegoer is likely to miss. At the same time, the movie has flaws, such as a contrived scene in a hospital and an annoying homeless character who pops up in a couple of scenes. Overall, the production team has succeeded in giving FD fans and new viewers a thrill ride of gory, guilty pleasure.

If you're a fan of the franchise, you'd know the drill by now, and can probably mentally run through all the cliché moments you'll be expected to see being played out on screen once again. Start with a spectacular death-defying escape from certain demise, and because Death cannot accept those who cheated on him, hence begins that hunter-prey game where the Death's invisible hand starts to design some elaborate life-ending sequence for its victims, sometimes with some wickedly black humour thrown in.

Seriously though, Death has turned hip in the series, allowing a select group of survivors led by a prophetic messenger, if anything just to challenge himself to pick them off one by one through the simple rule of elimination in order of the premonition, dangling the carrot that whosoever can break any of his death traps, will be worthy of a second chance in life, not. One thing's for sure, an audience is not going to just walk in and expect great acting or high drama. All we want, simply and crudely put, is to see how brutal or comical death can result from sometimes the most ridiculous of set ups.

To top its predecessors, this installment had its introductory big scene set in stock car racing, which is the perfect avenue for 101 things to go wrong, and when they do, have thousands of potential victims to pick off from. While the very first movie had a spectacular, and some say too realistic for good taste in having witness from within a plane break up and explode upon take-off, this one had an adrenaline pumping race that got enhanced thanks to the latest gimmick in town, 3D.

And while some films are presented in 3D format without exploiting its 3D elements to the maximum, The Final Destination milked every single sequence that it could. From the get go you have objects darting around and flying toward you, be it huge tyres or mashed body insides, everything got hurled toward you from the screen, which I have to admit made me duck a couple of times, having deliberately chosen to sit up front so that the screen totally enveloped my field of vision. But there were still some sequences that looked quite cheaply done though, akin to the quality of those made for television movies due to a smaller budget devoted to effects. But for what it's worth as a 3D film, this is one of the better contemporary live action ones out there now.

One does not expect Oscar winning material in its storyline or acting, though the eye-candy cast made sitting through this film palatable, even if they're acting range comes with vast rooms for improvement. The film's relatively short, clocking under 90 minutes, and had enough cheat sheet deja-vu moments (which included the opening credits priming you on what to excpect) to repeat itself for the sole purpose of bloating the runtime. It also ran out of steam in its final act, leading to a very convenient and rushed conclusion which was just probably director David R. Ellis' way of saying "I do not know how to end this".

Will there be another Final Destination? Sure, if the writers can dream up of another shocker of an opening sequence to set the stage for more deathly carnage to happen. It's no brainer, and if box office results this opening weekend prove to be stellar, then we should expect this franchise to develop some legs to keep going on. And on. But if that happens, this will be viewed in 3D, or naught.

I had the displeasure of seeing this movie yesterday and believe me when I say that my expectations were really low...but I did't think it would be that bad! David Ellis has done some decent films, Cellular was very well executed in my opinion, but what happened here I will never know.

Everyone knows that the Final Destination franchise which started as a exercise in suspense and terror descended into parody starting with the sequels. There is no suspense and I hate to say it, every time someone died and gore appeared on the screen, I started laughing. None of it was realistic, not even when blood was coming out of someone's mouth did it look real.

The way people die in films like this are made to be creative, because the kind of audience going to see these films wants to see people die in inventive and gory ways...too bad its just silly. Lets hope this really is the "Final Destination" for this worn out franchise.

The characters were annoying,cast was annoying,nearly every scene have deaths so there were a small and fastened plot,which was bad. But it was still watchable and original bloody carnage movie. Like Hunt's death and the Mechanic-with-no-spine. As I say,the worst of the series,but not boring.

I would like to start off by saying I'm a fan of the FINAL DESTINATION series. Even the much maligned third film is starting to grow on me. When it was announced that David Ellis was returning to the director chair (along with screenwriter Eric Bress), I was quite excited, considering that part two is arguably the best in the series. But this one. If I were to describe this film in one word, I would say DISAPPOINTING. In fact, this is one of the most disappointing movies of this year! The fact that the makers of part two has returned just adds on to the frustration.

The film starts off pretty rushed. In fact, the film is rushed altogether. You feel as if the filmmakers wanted to get through with the film. The laziness is so apparent in here that you're wondering how much the executives offered in their salary. The film is so lazy that there are even glaring plot holes in the hackneyed script! How the hell does a film that is based on something ridiculous have plot holes? The film—better yet, the franchise, spends most of its time in setting up rules on the order people are going to die yet this film ignores practically everything and kills people in any order it feels like!

Even the clever foreshadowing from the previous films is quite blatant here. The laziness is also extended to the death scenes. Remember, quality, not quantity. Even though this film has the most death scenes compared to the previous entries, most of them suck and even that word wouldn't give the deaths that much justice. We all have to admit it sooner or later but we see these films for the death scenes. What is the freaking point in watching this film if they turn out to be lazy to an extent that some death scenes are rehashed from previous FD films? Exactly. There is no point.

Another problem about the death scenes is that there is barely any suspense when people are about to get killed. Usually, in the FD films, seeing the set up of the Rube Goldberg-like death scenes IS the suspense, but in here, they feel as if they come out of nowhere because of how rushed everything is. They're surprising, yes, but the surprises wear off very quickly. Google up Alfred Hitchcock's definition of "suspense" to learn the difference between surprise and suspense.

Let's move on to the next problem: CGI. With the 3D technology, it's obvious the filmmakers wanted to add more CGI effects so the images could pop out on the screen. The problem here is that the FINAL DESTINATION series is always known for their practical effects. The premonition sequence in here works well in 3D, sure, but the CGI is terrible! They look so fake that I questioned how this film wasn't released direct to DVD.

You know you have a bad film when a franchise that was supposed to be scary and mysterious now turns into something that pokes fun of itself. It has happened many times before, most notably, the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET franchise. It's as if the filmmakers were aware that the franchise is dying and that their last attempt was to add self-aware characters and idiotic, dumb lines in the film with the many problems the film already has.

Even the characters are more like an excuse to kill them off later. It's apparent that this isn't a movie but more of a carnival ride, waiting to see who dies and how they will die. That's how low this film has gone. You'd also be surprised to find out that the most fleshed out character is, in fact, not the protagonist, but a supporting character, played by Mykelti Williamson. He gives a laughable and forced performance but that's nothing compared to Bobby Campo, who is easily the worst premonitionist in the franchise. He can't act to save his life. And the less we say about the others, the better. However, I'm willing to admit the only character I did feel sympathy for was played by Krista Allen, who plays a motherly role with an extremely short running time.

However, there are other few things that I liked about the film (emphasis on the word "few"): There's a sequence in a salon and a car wash that have at least SOME suspense. I don't know if this counts but I also liked the opening credits, which I thought was ingenious, a montage of the previous films' memorable death scenes. And that's about it. Three things. What an accomplishment!

I guess it isn't hard to tell but this is, by far, the weakest in the series because there's nothing new. You'd expect that a mythology so easily expandable would be explored here but no. By the end of the film, you feel underwhelmed. You wished they could have done better. In fact, you KNOW they could have done better. If they were to make a fifth film, they better put some thought into it. If you're thinking about watching this movie only ONCE, you should see it in its intended format in 3D AND in theaters, but I don't see why anyone should waste their money on this film.