Destination finale 4

From David Ellis, the director of "Snakes on a Plane" and "Final Destination 2", came the fourth outing for the Final Destination franchise in 2009. It came out during the brief 3-D resurgence in cinema, and it was one of many horror films that received the treatment.

Unfortunately, this was not a patch on the previous three, and crucially there was nothing new offered in this outing. The film suffers as a result, and feels stale. These films are always easy to watch and enjoyable, but by the ending, it has a feeling equivalent to bad fast-food - you've an empty stomach, and you could do with some more.

The plot is the usual in this franchise. A group of people cheat death and one-by-one Death begins to hunt them down. Many of the deaths are over-the-top and left me shaking my head (The pool drain, being the strangest). It was enjoyable enough, but completely pointless and added nothing new for the franchise. I found the CGI to be overdone and very distracting. All the deaths and action looked very fake because of it. The short-run time is worth mentioning, as the film barely clocked in at over 80 minutes. Probably just as well.

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.

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.

For me, a rating of 5 out of 10 means I didn't like the movie, but I didn't hate it either.

"The Final Destination" is a 3D horror thriller gimmick. Even though I saw this in 2D, there were many elements that were very obviously designed to be in 3D to take full advantage of the medium.

However, the film itself just isn't good.

The acting is terrible. The story is formulaic. There's nothing really interesting as far as the plot. No discussion of death. No new interesting concepts. Lots of fluff in the form of false kills. And the entire film from the opening credits to the closing credits is about the methods in which these people die.

What this movie is really about is killing young, attractive individuals in a manner which will compliment the 3D. Nothing else. It's just killing people using a Rube Goldberg device or a flying object in 3D.

Some of the special effects are good, and a few of the deaths are interesting, however, the film doesn't really do anything for me. It's just kind of there. I don't really hate it, but I don't really like it either. I also don't really care for 3D in general. I think it's a stupid way of getting you to pay a little extra, like IMAX (which is a bigger screen and some extra speakers. Yaay).

Overall, if you like the 3D gimmick; you're just looking for a movie to take a few friends to and have a little fun; and you don't really care about plot, characters, or story, you might have some fun. To anyone else, I wouldn't really recommend it. It's just a studio gimmick and can be easily ignored.

5/10 - Nothing special.

You can just imagine the suits sitting around their big round table discussing how to churn out another financially beneficial Final Destination movie and get away with it. Big suit number one puts forward that they obviously need more inventive mouse trap like deaths. Big suit number two has the genius notion that 3D is again taking off so why not utilise that option too. And that's pretty much all that it took, with the end result being a movie that is very self aware of its roots, but still plays out as the runt of the Final Destination litter.

Just as the director of the first one, James Wong, was brought back to direct part 3, the makers here bring back the director of part 2, David R. Ellis, to direct part 4! Which ultimately proves to be nothing more than some sort of nepotism like factor because The Final Destination is basically just over 82 minutes of poor acting, bad writing and a series of kills weaved together by the odd 5 minutes of barely relevant characterisations (the exposition as painful as the gory deaths!).

The kills entertain as they pretty much always have throughout the franchise, with the opening disaster sequences (here set at a speedway stadium) continuing one of the series' great traditions. While the opening and closing X-Ray/Skeletal credit sequences are superb and a credit to those involved. Yet it all feels so tired, where in spite of the willingness to upgrade the technology, it's still lazy and has nothing to really justify its very being other than that to make easy money.

The makers of part 5 would have to come up with something special to not turn this franchise from being one that was once bright and inventive, into that of a money train joke. 4/10