Final Destination 3 Year: 2006 Director: James Wong Written by: Glen Morgan, James Wong Threat: Death Weapon of Choice: Nail Gun Based upon: none Color/B&W/3D: Color Language: English Country of Origin: United States IMDb page:

Other movies in this series:
Final Destination
Final Destination 2

The tyranist's thoughts
Since I just barely got around to watching Final Destination 2 this week, I can't help but compare this flick with its predecessor. On the whole, I have to say that even though Morgan and Wong are back, this one is inferior. But I'll get to that in a minute.
So a couple years after the last flick and in a different place (I guess, I had a hard time telling where this town of McKinley was) a graduating class is having one last bash at the local amusement park. Just before getting on a roller coaster of evil, one of the students has a vision of the horrifying crash that is about to happen and manages to get several people off the coaster. But, alas, her boyfriend wasn't among the survivors. Well, death's plan has been interrupted and you pretty much know what happens from there.
So almost all of my problems are wrapped up in the main character of this one. In this kind of movie (which should probably be classified as a slasher since it shares many of the same tropes even though there is no corporeal killer), it is absolutely critical that the audience wants the main character to live. In this case, I didn't. Whether it was just poorly written or the actress wasn't up to making me care, I'm not sure, but in the end, I had no sympathy for her and therefore, no investment in the movie.
The deaths were as elaborate and spectacular as ever, but I didn't much care. The production is slick and without serious flaws. I just can't say that it worked for me.
If you are a fan of the franchise, particularly because of the elaborate death scenes, you may really enjoy this. Otherwise, it is a pretty mediocre flick.
Posted: February 11, 2006

Rish's Reviews
Well, after hearing such negativity about the film, I expected it to be pretty bad. My first clue was the trailer, which I believe I saw at the beginning of King Kong 2005. It was not a very effective trailer.
I actually had tickets to the premiere of this one, but things got screwed up and by the time I actually got to the Grauman's Chinese, it was full. When the movie came out, it looked so very trite and very stupid that I thought I might have to skip it altogether.
But as I had nothing to do today, and I had missed the beginning of Eight Below, I gave Final Destination 3 a try.
And it wasn't that bad. Nowhere near as good as the original, which was an excellent, entertaining film (indeed, I deemed it the best horror flick of 2000), but better than most of the junk that comes out in my favourite genre.
The first scenes at the amusement park were pretty enjoyable, actually. The idea of an evil amusement park has fascinated me since Something Wicked This Way Comes, and I loved that the roller coaster had a giant devil statue at its entrance and skeletons all around the waiting line, as if they were trying to frighten away as many potential riders as possible.*
If tyranist said that the characters were unlikable, I'll have to agree with that. Except for our main heroine and hero, all the characters fell into two categories: a) asshole or b) bitch. Also, there were more middle fingers in this flick than a Robins Brothers engagement ring commercial. One character died really hard, though, and made a sound as she was dying. That was not cool, man. That . . . was not cool.
The ending was quite weak, really, and went on a little too long. I mean, once the main characters escape death (or Death, in this case), if the credits don't start to roll, you know they're gonna die anyway. It just shouldn't take ten minutes.
Still, they did that Rube Goldberg conveyor belt death sequence thing again and again, setting up deaths so elaborate comic book readers would doubt them. These deaths were funnier than they were anything else. The film is not even in the slightest bit scary and you know, I wonder how intentional that was. Could it really be that hard to make a scary movie that startles, disturbs, or unnerves its audience? You woulda thought that since the writer/director/producer team that made the first one came back for the third, that the quality would've jumped up from the second one. But it didn't. Too bad.
On the other hand, the film has some logic to it and moves along at a decent pace. The special effects were quite good (if they used a lot of CGI, I couldn't tell). Oh, and this one at least had nudity where the first two didn't. I don't think the movie was terrible (terrible was When A Stranger Calls 2006), but they'd better not make a fourth one. You hear me, Angel of Death?
*I heard they were going to do that on a ride at Knotts Berry Farm until they found out that using the Peanuts characters already did just that.
Posted: May 18, 2006

Total Skulls: 9

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?