Nick, his girlfriend Lori, and their friends Hunt and Janet are attending a car race when Nick has a premonition in which a terrible car accident causes the death of many people in the audience, including himself and his friends. Scared, Nick warns his companions and causes a small brawl, dragging other people out of the racetrack as well. The accident happens exactly as predicted, and now the survivors, thanks to the premonition, will start dying one by one in the strangest ways. Death claims the victims that escaped her!
The saga of bad luck reaches its fourth episode, and this time in stereoscopy, the only novelty of an equally useless and unoriginal product.
Few people know that it was "Final Destination 3", from 2006 and directed by James Wong, that was supposed to be made in 3D, naturally not today's Digital 3D but the old tridimensional that was enjoyed with cardboard glasses. The idea did not come to fruition, and it was necessary to wait another three years - and a substantial revolution in stereoscopic viewing technology - to be able to witness spectacular deaths caused by everyday objects, systematically converted into killer machines that are hurled towards the spectators in the theater. It might seem obvious to say it, but "Final Destination 3D", now orphaned even of the serializing numbering, is really all here: spectacular deaths and 3D. No one would have expected more, this is true, but this fourth chapter still disappoints for a whole series of reasons that absolutely do not go beyond the obvious and emphasize the minimum effort that is too often spent in Hollywood to manufacture a box-office product.
If already the third film began to show the tail of a saga that was worryingly recycling a single idea for the third time, with "Final Destination 3D" the flaw becomes even more evident and we are faced with yet another complacent massacre stripped of any innovation, even those little ideas that were timidly proposed in chapters 2 and 3 to liven up the plot. The extravagant connections and signs to decipher from "Final Destination 2" and the premonitory photographs of "Final Destination 3" were gold in comparison to the total void of this fourth chapter, which should differentiate itself from the others only by the visions that the protagonist has of all the deaths, which would be nothing more than a facile narrative device to eliminate the "catch the signs" game of the previous films, the only reason - here denied - to stimulate the brain in a saga that bets everything on the visual shock.
Regression in terms of originality, therefore, which translates into substantial uselessness. First point.
The second point of the list titled "Three good reasons to say no to Final Destination 3D" is the lack of fantasy in the deaths. What was the hallmark of this saga risks also abandoning us, since two deaths are recycled as they are from the first film, another
resembles a bloody stew already seen in chapter 2 and in general, fantasy is absent. At least two preparation moments work well - if not very well - (specifically the one in the car wash and the one in the wing of the under-construction shopping mall) and there is a death by suction in a bloody escalator and well realized, but the others give a sense of poorly exploited idea (the drunk dragged by the tow truck) if not even a bad idea and that's it (the guy crushed by the bathtub in the hospital). The level of splatter also decreases considerably compared to the two previous chapters, focusing here only in a few scenes and not locating in all the death occasions as in the predecessors.
But it is the third point that could most hurt the spectator, even the one prepared for the worst, namely the scarcity of digital special effects. Being in 3D, the film manages to
mask the crude digital well, since the spectator is focused on the depth effect, but in some cases even the stereoscopy does not manage to cover the flaw. And so, between fake cars that crash into the spectators, blood splatters too fake to seem realistic and premonitions realized entirely with the help of digital effects, there is really a lot to wrinkle your nose. Not forgetting, by the way, that if in the cinema in Digital 3D the thing could also "pass", once the film is on home video and you decide to watch it in 2D all the "visual defects" will be accentuated.
In favor of the film, however, there is this infamous 3D, well used in its primary and basic function, that is, to hurl objects, weapons and blood splatters towards the spectator. A game as childish as undeniably still fun. Then "Final Destination 3D" has at least one conceptually intelligent scene, that is, to set the grand finale precisely in a movie theater where an "explosive" film in 3D is being projected, thus finding an autorreferential function not less originally metafilmic to reflect precisely on the medium/technology that is
being used.
The cast is composed of complete unknowns from American TV series, among whom stands out - but only for beauty - Shantel VanSanten, who plays Lori.
Behind the camera, we find David R. Ellis, already author of "Final Destination 2" and "Snakes on a Plane".
In short, the confirmation that the "Final Destination" saga really has nothing more to say comes precisely from this fourth film, which even 3D cannot entirely save. You have fun, this is undeniable, also because the film is short and fast-paced, but the feeling of having gone way beyond the proverbial cherry is really overwhelming.
Rounded-up rating.
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