New “destination” brings 3-D dazzle to horror series

By Jesse West

In the wonderful world of horror films, the Final Destination franchise has become the modern-day equivalent of the Friday the 13 series; watch horny teenagers get murdered in increasingly inventive, gruesome ways. Now, after a three-year absence, death returns in “The Final Destination,” which delivers the goods in glorious 3-D.

Following the formula set forth by the previous three films, Nick O’Bannon (Bobby Campo) sees a premonition while with friends at McKinley Speedway, warning him of imminent death. In the nick of time, the hero saves his friends and a handful of strangers including his girlfriend (Shantel VanSanten) and a security guard (Mykelti Williamson). Like his predecessors, Nick learns the hard way that the grim reaper doesn’t like losing and strikes out at the survivors, who are forced to band together and find a way to cheat death.

Let’s get this out of the way; “The Final Destination” is not interested in being a good movie. The script is devoid of anything resembling scares or three-dimensional characters. Furthermore, if you’ve seen the other films, then you can pretty much predict everything well in advance. For some, that makes it a bad movie not worthy of the $13 bucks required to see it. For the fans, however, it’s blissful.

Just like Friday the 13, Final Destination isn’t going for masterful storytelling. Within the first five minutes, it’s pretty clear that the filmmakers know what the fans want and aren’t afraid to give it to them. That fact alone makes this film a vast improvement over the muddled “Final Destination 3” and puts it on par with “Final Destination 2.” But what puts this film above the sequels is the 3-D experience.

Whereas other recent 3-D films have tried to downplay the gimmicky nature of 3-D, the new Final Destination fully embraces the technology and uses it to its advantage. Add in the return of “Final Destination 2” director David R. Ellis, well known for crafting insanely wicked kills, and the result is one of the most entertaining movies playing on the big screen this year.

“The Final Destination” also sports a solid cast of actors that make the most out of their underwritten characters. Campo and VanSanten, as lovers Nick and Lori, come off as the best couple in the series since Devon Sawa and Ali Larter in the original. Nick Zano, playing the requisite Jerk, chews away at the scenery while the rest of the cast deliver decent, albeit workmanlike performances. Special credit goes to Justin Welborn, who is a hoot as the drunken racist ballsy enough to throw out racial slurs that most actors tend to shy away from these days. If you dug Welborn as much as I did, then by all means seek out one of his previous films; the 2007 indie hit “The Signal,” undeniably the best horror movie since “The Blair Witch Project.”

Although great for pure entertainment value, there’s no denying that the script is bad. Some key character moments are a bit hard to swallow and, as stated before, it would’ve been nice if the filmmakers had tried to at least do something to make this one a little bit different from the others. However, the main problem comes with the ending. For its brisk 82 minute running time, the film wastes too much time with the ending, throwing premonitions on top of premonitions when it should’ve just got to the point. And yes, the film most likely wouldn’t be as effective in two dimensions.

In closing, “The Final Destination” is not a revolutionary horror film nor will it likely be remembered 10 years from now save for the 3-D effects. In the end, it doesn’t really matter though. Ellis and company knew exactly what both the diehard fans and casual audiences wanted to see: a gruesome but highly entertaining horror film to close out the summer. And in comparison to the more serious movies available in theatres right now, especially the vile abomination that is Rob Zombie’s “Halloween II,” “The Final Destination” deserves to be seen. By the way, I seriously doubt this will be the final entry. Death always finds a way.