The Final Destination

Well they've certainly got their formula down. One teen has a premonition about an overly elaborate and drawn disaster, saves his or her friends, and subsequently spends the rest of the movie trying avoid death. The first movie actually introduced this as an interesting a novel concept (though it was poorly executed). The second one, though bad, featured a spectacular car accident scene that still looks great. The third brought a sense of humor and lightened the series a bit. Now the fourth installment just went through the paces. Though none of the movies were good (or even mediocre), it should come as little surprise that this was the worst.

This time Nick O'Bannon (Bobby Campo) and a few of his friends are at a NASCAR race. He witnesses a horrific crash that kills everyone in his section- in his mind. After making a scene he convinces his friends to leave, and by extension a few others follow. Of course, the accident occurs, and now they have to avoid increasingly complex traps set by death.

I'm not outright dismissing this movie. Naturally it's not supposed to be an Oscar contender. The few things that made its predecessors palletable are all but absent here. In the previous movies, the accident caused the survivors to band together and try to protect each other. This time except for the four main characters, there's almost no interaction between the survivors. This means there's absolutely no development of these characters. In the first movies as well, the death scenes were indeed elaborate, but at least they led somewhere. In this movie, however, these buildups lead nowhere. Drawn out and complex traps end up being for naught. Granted, this ends up blindsiding you, but more importantly it leaves you asking "what was the point of that?" And the few times the payoff is as intended, it is so absurd as to put even the most outlandish deaths in the earlier movies to shame.

This is the shortest movie of the franchise, clocking in at under an hour and a half. Clearly they sacrificed even the most remote character development to keep this trim running length. I did not have the privilege of seeing this in 3D, but I bet I picked out most if not all of the instances this effect was used. I'm not sure if I've ever seen a movie that relied so heavily on objects flying at the screen.

0.5/5