Director: David R. Ellis
Writer: Eric Bress
Cast: Bobby Campo, Shantel VanSanten, Nick Zano, Haley Webb, Mykelti Williamson, Krista Allen, Andrew Fiscella, Justin Welborn, Stephanie Honore, Lara Grice, Jackson Walker
Runtime: 82 mins.
2009
One would be forgiven for thinking The Final Destination to be the ultimate entry in the franchise, purely on the basis of its misleading title. This is not the case. In fact, despite its arbitrary jettisoning of the numbered sequel naming convention, this feels more like a run-of-the-mill numbered sequel than any other entry in the series. Very little is decisive or definitive about this particular entry.
That's not to say there's nothing unique about it. In a strange departure, this is the first Final Destination movie with an inciting incident that does not involve the paranoia of riding in a mechanical vehicle. Rather, our heroes are observing others riding in mechanical vehicles at some sort of stock car race. If we were to be generous, we would suggest that the film is establishing its theme of audiences and the act of watching. If we were being less generous, we would suggest that this is Death's most rushed and contrived initiating disaster yet.
In case you're not familiar with that magic Final Destination formula by now, it goes a little something like this: A group of young adults narrowly escapes a fatal disaster, in this case a fiery NASCAR mishap, thanks to the vision our protagonist, in this case a lad named Nick (Bobby Campo), receives out of the blue. Since Nick disrupted Death's plans for himself and a handful of other victims, Death feels the need to formulaically hunt down these characters based on the order they were supposed to die, and destroy them with needlessly complicated Rube Goldberg-style death traps involving everyday objects. As soon as our heroes figure this out, they must flit about to warn the next hapless victim of Death's scheme. They don't succeed.
The Final Destination is both more formulaic and more exaggerated than its predecessors, three films that it mythologizes during its opening credits with stylized depictions of every death thusfar in the franchise. It's a movie that loves what it is. As such, the deaths have pivoted from suspense pieces to outright slapstick comedies. Maybe slashstick is a more apt designation--instead of getting a bump on the head, you get sliced to pieces by a fence. I'm thinking especially of the first death, in which a racist about to commit a hate crime ends up being pulled down the street by a chain connecting his pants with his driverless truck. He also catches on fire while his car radio blares out "Why Can't We Be Friends?"
Or the death where a guy's colon gets pulled out of his butt. Clearly we are in it for the goofs at this point.
The transition into utter ridiculousness has been happening over the course of four movies now. Yet the transition has been herky-jerky on account of the franchise's fascinating ping-ponging between two wildly different creative teams. Final Destination and Final Destination 3 were both directed by the slightly self-serious James Wong, while Final Destination 2 and The Final Destination were helmed by the supremely tongue-in-cheek David R. Ellis. As such, Final Destination 3 heightens the first movie's model into a sort of silly-nasty tone, whereas The Final Destination heightens the second movie's slashstick comedy. The end result is a series that feels like two creators doubling down on their own visions until they have become grotesque, shaggy, and unseemly.
That sort of thing happens with sequels though, and of the two tracks of parallel Final Destination development I am far more enamored with that of David R. Ellis. This film is in close contention with FD3 for being the worst of the whole bunch, but there's still a sense of dumb playfulness about it that makes it watchable. It is, however, clear that Ellis has entirely abandoned any attempt at drama or narrative beyond the cold functionalism of the Final Destination formula. After cobbling together a crew of paper-thin but interesting misfits for FD2, Ellis has here relegated the connective tissue between deaths utterly inert. The characters are flat and blunt as a manhole lid. To the point, this is the only Final Destination film that doesn't even bother to give half its characters names, instead opting for base signifiers like Mechanic, Racist, Mechanic's Girlfriend, Racist's Wife, Cowboy, and MILF's Husband. At least Ellis is upfront about his task of tossing cliches to ignominious fates.
The slapdashery of the film makes more sense when you realize that The Final Destination was explicitly positioned to take advantage of the first wave of contemporary 3D. Yes, this movie is in the grand tradition of mediocre horror films getting kneecapped by dumb gimmicks. It explains why we spend an inordinate amount of time in a movie theater watching an audience with 3D glasses watching a movie where something explodes--just as they are in danger of themselves exploding. It's a doofy meta move that I didn't catch because I wasn't watching the film in 3D. This handicap in my viewing experience also explains what I found to be the clumsiest death sequences: upon retrospect, they all involve objects and flesh hurtling themselves directly at the camera.
1 / 5 BLOBS
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