The Final Destination is the fourth entry in the Final Destination franchise which now includes six films. If that isn’t enough gore and death for you, then there are also a one-shot comic, a comic series, and ten (ten!) novels to keep you occupied. David R. Ellis directed The Final Destination having been brought back on board after his successful direction of Final Destination 2. Each Final Destination movie begins with a premonition of a coming disaster, and this one takes place at a stock car race.
Buy Final Destination 5-Film CollectionFour friends, all college students, are at the stock-car races during a break in their semester. Hunt (Nick Zano) is hoping to see an accident while the other three – boyfriend and girlfriend Nick (Bobby Campo) and Lori (Shantel VanSanten) and group friend Janet (Haley Cunningham) – seem to be there just to have something to do. The premonition is often the best part of a Final Destination film, and The Final Destination is no different. Nick has an extremely vivid vision of an accident on the track that sends cars and car parts into the stands decimating what looks to be up to 100 people in various disgustingly fun ways: gore abounds.
Nick, of course, freaks out and tries to warn his friends that they must get out now as he believes the car crash is really going to happen at any moment. This leads to a fight in the stands and the expulsion of the four friends and several other spectators who are angry they’ve been kicked out. Anger quickly becomes horror as the accident begins in the arena and body parts fly about and blood sprays.
Then, in typical Final Destination style, each of the survivors begin to die in the order they should have died at the race track. Nick reads some articles and a book or two and suddenly decides they can cheat Death’s plan if they can just decipher their premonitions to save the remaining lives. This has been attempted in three previous films with no success so far. It doesn’t go any better this time around, either.
The Final Destination is the first misstep in the Final Destination movies. The acting, except for Mykelti Williamson as George the security guard, is noticeably subpar. George is also the only character given a back story. Back stories make us care, and George becomes the lodestone that carries the entire film. The ridiculously complicated death scenes are beginning to feel awfully familiar. People being struck by mammoth, speeding, and somehow silent vehicles is wearing thin. It isn’t just one person who is suddenly killed by a truck. It isn’t even two or three. No, four, count ‘em, four deaths in one movie are by runaway truck. Even worse, there is a fifth death in which a man is dragged to his death behind, you guessed it, yet another truck.
Special Features:
- Two Alternate Endings
- The Final Destination Previzualization and Storyboards
- Body Count: The Deaths of The Final Destination
- Additional Scenes
The special features are nice to go through once, though the alternate endings are alternate for good reason. Everything there is to like about Final Destination movies is in The Final Destination; unfortunately, for this entry, the characters and deaths don’t meet the established bar.
