The Final Destination is actually Final Destination 4. I can only imagine the studio dropped the numbering scheme because they were embarrassed. Calling it "*THE* Final Destination" maybe is a bit classier. They stopped caring about classiness after the title.
Why did I pick Final Destination 4? Just because I have not seen this one or Final Destination 5. This will is a two-part two-day death fest towards the end of our October celebrations. I think the original Final Destination is one of the best horror movies of the early 2000s. Final Destination 2 and 3 were both diminishing returns. By 4 I was pretty bored of the franchise. A lot of the reason I'm doing this horror series is to give second chances movies I skipped. I thought Final Destination 4 was too stupid to be good. Was I wrong?
No.
Final Destination 4 is actually far dumber than I thought. This was the movie shot in 3D riding that brief Avatar fad. But instead of any pretense of realism, this 3D is pure carnival gimmick. It reminds me of 3D horror flicks from twenty years earlier. It is in the vein of movies like Friday the 13th Part 3 or Jaws 3D, which are mostly about gore flying at the screen over and over. Since the 3D era is now all but dead, I couldn't watch Final Destination 4 in any more than two dimensions. Yet still that dumbass "look at that dude's head flying at me" atmosphere survives.
This movie opens at a race track to the sound of screaming late-2000s buttrock. (2009 was not that long ago but somehow this low-rent Nickelback music sounds more dated than disco in 2020.) Our heroes are openly contemptuous of the "rednecks" all around them, and admit outright that they are only watching to see wrecks. They're immediately awful people. But they get their wish - there's a huge pile-up. Then everybody dies in graphic and hilarious gore gags. The first eight minutes of Final Destination 4 are a delight. Beyond that well...
Then our hero, Nick (Bobby Campo) in typical series fashion, realizes that was all a premonition. He pushes his friends and some strangers out of the disaster before it happens. However, because the unseen force of Death in this franchise is very anal about his schedule, he kills them all one by one in increasingly preposterous ways. Death really has no subtlety this time. He'll have an air tank push you through a fence so your body can slice off in chucks into the audience's face. Abstract concepts of predestination can have fun with their jobs too, as it turns out.
The best part of Final Destination 4 is the utterly shameless gore. But the second best part is the sometimes decent suspense. It is not really suspense of "will these people die?" - they all will die. But more "how will these people die?" Take the dead of the "MILF" character (I never caught her name besides "MILF"), played by Krista Allen. She is getting her hair done in a salon. The movie sets up a broken barber's chair that might collapse, some hair spray getting slowly heated by a hot straightener, a loose ceiling fan, and her head is in one of those dome perm things. Which one of these Looney Tunes Rube Goldberg nonsense contraptions will kill her? I'll bet five bucks it's the ceiling fan, you in?
The worst part about this movie, however, is the cast. Final Destination 1 was not exactly an Oscarbait drama, but it had solid actors. Devon Sawa, Ali Lartner, Stifler!, those guys could get you a movie. Final Destination 3 at least had Mary Elizabeth Winstead. This movie has a cast of nobodies who are mostly terrible. These people have no personality or even an attempt at personality. I could not tell you a single defining trait about our lead, Nick. I could not tell you anything about his girlfriend, Lori (Shantel VanSanten).
Then when Final Destination 4 gives its character's personality, its terrible. Nick Zano plays Hunt, Nick's friend. They call him "Hunt" but clearly this guy was born to be a "Chet". The actor plays the role of Hunt/Chet as a horny dumbass, the kind of guy who if he wasn't in a Final Destination movie would probably be chilling with a machete through is torso around Crystal Lake. Hutn/Chet gets the best death in the movie when he recreates Chuck Palahniuk's short story, "Guts".
Another memorable character is the racist dude (Justin Welborn) who drops N-bombs. He dies while trying to leave a burning cross on the lawn of the one Black guy. That was a bad idea, Final Destination 4. Even in 2009, that was the wrong kind of tasteless.
In conclusion, Final Destination 4 is "another one of those". Most fourth entries in horror franchises end up being just "one of those", so do not get too surprised. Final Destination 4 is stupid to the point of self-parody. You'd really be better off just watching a kill compilations on Youtube than the entire movie. It is not atrociously terrible. It is watchable. But... eh.
Next Time: Final Destination 5 (2011), which to the shock of all, got very good reviews. Maybe that's the "good one".
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