When watching The Final Destination I tried to do one thing and that was to not let the 3D gimmick get in the way of my observations on the movie.  I first watched it in 2D then in 3D so I could see just what the difference was, which in truth turned out to be not a lot of difference at all.

The basic plot of the movie is almost a carbon copy of the first three movies.  A big accident happens and a random teenager has a “flash forward” to the whole thing; which includes the nice opportunity to see his friends die one after the other.  Waking up from the vision he drags them all out of the place before they die (dragging a few people along just for the fun and obviously because they needed to keep the number of deaths up throughout the movie).  Anybody who has ever seen the other Destination movies now start to feel at home as each of the survivors is not so mysteriously killed to rectify the issue that they should already be dead.

One difference I noticed with this movie is that there are no obvious stars , or at least actors you’ve noticed in the other Destination movies.  These could all be bit part players in daytime soaps for all know and the acting at times is on part with those shows too.  As harsh as that sounds it’s not important to the movie at all really because all of the actors are pretty much there as meat to be ripped apart for our pleasure.  One thing I will complain about is the fact Tony Todd is missing from this movie (he was also lacking in the third movie even though he was used as the voice for the devil on the rollercoaster ride I believe).  Todd made an interesting impact on the first two movies as the strange mortician who turned up to explain to the kids that the grim reaper was after them and fixing the mistake.

The thing that really bugged me about this movie is it was unintentionally funny, it was so cheesy at times that there was no real impact in the deaths.  This could arguably be a spoof of the original movies but if it was, it would have been a good spoof.  If they billed it as a spoof I think I’d have been more lenient on my views really because as a horror movie it was very weak really and should have been a straight to DVD sequel.  The 3D is just a gimmick here used to get a very below par movie into the movie theatre.  Yes, the 3D is handled better than in movies that have been converted to 3D; this one was 3D from the outset so filmed to really push that element at the watcher (pun intended).  The problem is this does not help the movie.  If they forgot the 3D effects and just added a darker tone with more believable deaths? It may have been a better movie.

5/10