Final Destination 3: This is Getting Old

At one point in Final Destination 3, the male lead, Kevin Fischer, says that he wishes he knew why any of this was happening. You and me both, Kevin.

You probably know the drill of the famous or infamous Final Destination series by now, so I'll spare you the semantics. Yes, someone has a vision of some terrible freak accident in the not-too-distant future, and chooses to play it safe while their friends go on to suffer a bizarre fate. Allow me to be frank - this is getting old. Forget the positive buzz surrounding Bloodlines, which I am anxious to watch, and ground yourself in 2006. YouTube has just exploded in popularity, and balancing out the good with the bad, Final Destination still has yet to release a sequel that stands out from the movie before it - cross out freak airplane crash and replace it with roller coaster accident, and you'll have the premise of this third installment spelled out for you in scribbles. Every single movie in this series is little to nothing more than the one that came before it, a grotesque and tangled ball of the same edgy and shallow sexual jokes, the same stereotypical high schoolers, and the same copy-paste antics that a younger you might have seen in the don't miss these new releases! section while walking out of the video store. Unlike the original, Final Destination 3 is utterly void of any semblance of creativity. If the mistakes in the second movie weren't obvious enough, they've repeated them here verbatim. The more you repeat something good, the less clearly it rings. The more you repeat something bad, the harder it becomes to ignore. This threequel does both.

The characters in this movie are so shallow and stereotypical that they become practically parodic. The worst offenders are a pair of valley girls who mercifully die in a grotesque tanning parlor accident, but you knew that would happen. Whatever merits this threequel might possess are entirely overshadowed by the juvenile caricature of this whole ordeal. Maybe watching three of these things consecutively has made me unfairly harsh on this movie. Personally, I prefer to think that it has instead opened my eyes to what really needs to be said. Some might ask me to give it a pass as schlock entertainment or harmless fun, but it doesn't even succeed as that. Even the most basic of statements needs a reason to justify it, but Final Destination 3 screams aimlessly into the void.

The Final Destination series is based on a series of insane coincidences without rhyme or reason to either tie together or justify them. There's no explanation given for the carnage. No deeper emotional reason for these accidents that could spark some interesting character growth. This series is the premise of a YouTube clickbait video expanded to the scope and scale of an entire media franchise, and it doesn't work. The longer it tries to make itself work, the less it works, and the more forced and contrived it becomes. It is much like a rambling story told by a senile old man who hasn't yet figured out his conclusion. It is a question with no answer, a tale with no rhythm, and an empty body with no soul. The longer it shambles on, the more apparent its many disabilities become. One wonders how much longer this franchise can keep this up before dropping dead, not from a bizarre accident, but from sheer fatigue instead.

Final Destination 3 - 2/10

Proverbs 26:11