The Horrible Horror Vault: The one that's a threequel

 

 

Title: Final Destination 3

What Year?: 2006

Classification: Weird Sequel

Rating: What The Hell??? (2/4)

 

With this review, I am three years into doing movie reviews and finally definitely past the 300 movie count. For me, this has simply been another case of looking through a few options with nothing in particular in mind. It happened that that brought me to this revived feature and a movie and franchise that was never really on my radar before, except as a footnote to another movie that it might or might not have ripped off. As advertised, it happens to be the third entry in the franchise, which is exactly where things tend to get weird if they weren’t ready. I present Final Destination 3, a threequel whose good points can be as frustrating as its bad ones.

Our story begins with an introduction to our heroine Wendy, her boyfriend, and an assortment of teenagers that includes a reasonable percentage of actually likeable characters plus a couple jerks who often have a point. A premonition saves the young lady and several of her peers from an accident on a rollercoaster that apparently was last serviced when Zardoz was in theaters, but her guy is among the casualties. Soon, the survivors start to be killed off by strange accidents, and one of the jerks remembers a similar case involving a certain plane crash (because apparently even the characters would rather ignore number 2). That’s enough to convince the grieving protagonist that the unseen forces of fate are killing off her friends and frienemies- and it won’t be long before she is next!

Final Destination 3 was the third entry in the franchise of the same name. The film saw the return of director James Wong and writer Glen Morgan from the first film. The story did not feature any characters from the previous films, though Tony Todd (see Night of the Living Dead 1990) provided the voice of an announcer at the beginning and end of the film. The film starred Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Wendy, with Ryan Merriman as the helpful jerk Kevin and Kris Lemche as (spoiler???) the eventual human antagonist Ian. The soundtrack was composed by Shirley Walker (see Willard),  who had scored both of the previous films. (You really can’t win them all…) The film was a commercial success, earning a worldwide box office of about $118 million against a $25M budget. It received mixed to negative reviews, with more favorable comments singling out Winstead’s performance. Two additional sequels were released in 2009 and 2011. A sixth entry was in pre-production as of mid-2023.

For my experiences, this film came up before simply because of similarities with Sole Survivor (see my re-review, which includes comments that make no sense because I hadn’t decided what feature to put it under while writing it, and my “best” list), which I took a benign view of. As I commented previously, what both films really make me think of is the Change War series by my all-time favorite writer Fritz Leiber, which I have no illusions of being a likely influence on either. As for the present franchise, I was intrigued when the first film came out and impressed when it came my way on (network!) TV. I was interested enough to follow the sequels through 4, and found the present film to be the most interesting and flat-out good by far. If anything, it’s good enough to have a shot as a singularly rare threequel better than the original (compare with Day of the Dead). But, as I already alluded, the things that are good and actually improved are in direct conflict with a great deal that is particularly egregious, and my personal irritation is already going up after confirming that this is essentially from the same people as the first one.

Moving in, the good points of the movie are what we had so far been able to take for granted: Effective cinematography, good acting and dialogue, and a smart, genre-savvy story. On the acting front in particular, Winstead handily delivers what is easily the best performance of the whole franchise, at least outside of Todd’s comic-relief coroner. (Now that is suspiciously close to Sole Survivor…) She gets capable support from Merriman, while Lemche comes from behind as the one who truly and understandably slips into insanity. One can draw a thematic parallel in what is otherwise a weaker point in the story, the heroine’s growing preoccupation with “clues” to coming deaths that stretch things enough to be considered ambiguous in-universe. It all adds up to a story that delivers real emotional weight rather than running through interchangeable cannon fodder. On that point, further mention is in order for the macho minority character, played by Texas Battle (I literally double-checked that this is the actor’s name, not the character’s), who provides poignant bravado leading into the most well-executed death.

The ”but” that’s coming is the kills themselves. If you were willing to go along with the lethal-Rube Goldberg chain reactions of the first movie, there’s no point complaining now. However, as I ranted in a review thread long ago, several of the sequences here are particularly bad. To start with, the opening incident simply shouldn’t have happened, at least in the same way, once one particular character is out of the equation. The first two deaths (apparently done somewhat better in an alternate cut) are clearly a strained attempt to turn an especially stupid urban legend into a sensible scenario, which suffers further from contrived staging and uncharacteristically overt exploitation skin. Then there is the one that has always been my breaking point, an otherwise effective and believable workplace death that mines for redundant shock value with a gore shot that only make sense if a nail gun is loaded with literal nine-inch nails. The bigger “problem” is the definitely cumulative effect of making what would otherwise be an intelligent entry in an already thoughtful franchise feel like the dumb slasher movie that hostile mainstream observers were expecting. That, in turn, could have “worked” if there was an honest attempt at an energetic over-the-top/ “so bad it’s good” revamp (the closest thing to an excuse for 4), but with everything else at baseline, it’s just another case of too much and not enough.

That leaves the “one scene”, and I’m going with my pick for the best scene in the film. After the double funeral of the first two casualties, Kevin finds Wendy off by herself in the cemetery, shot to look sunny and peaceful. As they start into a typically engaging conversation, she says out of the blue (I can at least paraphrase), “Nothing makes me believe there isn’t an afterlife like being in a cemetery.” As the scene progresses, we get a sense of their relationship before and since the original events. It is and will remain emphatically non-romantic, yet there is a distinctive honesty already growing between them. In the midst of it, Wendy comments fatefully that she thought she has been feeling the presence of her lost love, but now thinks it is something different. Right about then, the sunny scene does change as clouds and distant thunder approach. What absolutely works is that even now, the pleasant environment of the cemetery does not feel like mockery or a fake-out; it’s just two sides of nature, mortality and grief. It’s a further reminder that this is a franchise conceived as a story with emotional and philosophical depth. Which, by my running rant, will be a further reminder that this movie is already slipping below its potential.

In closing, I will also acknowledge that I was taken off-guard in the course of this review by just how lonely I am in speaking as well as I have of this one. The first movie deserves to be remembered as a “classic” of 21^st-century horror, and it was already well on its way to that status by the time I got to it. The second was an inevitably divisive entry that tried to develop new ideas and directions, which I personally just find too unpleasant to appreciate. The present film is the one that at least looked for the right balance. It sounds little more than a do-over of the first movie, which in cold blood is exactly what it is. What the creators recognize is that telling the same story isn’t an excuse for also using the same characters. The final product proves that the same premises and situations can in fact lead to something very different, as long as it’s done with real thought and care. For that, I have absolutely no qualms standing by it. That’s enough to end on what I can call a high note.