The Final Destination

From David Ellis, the director of "Snakes on a Plane" and "Final Destination 2", came the fourth outing for the Final Destination franchise in 2009. It came out during the brief 3-D resurgence in cinema, and it was one of many horror films that received the treatment.

Unfortunately, this was not a patch on the previous three, and crucially there was nothing new offered in this outing. The film suffers as a result, and feels stale. These films are always easy to watch and enjoyable, but by the ending, it has a feeling equivalent to bad fast-food - you've an empty stomach, and you could do with some more.

The plot is the usual in this franchise. A group of people cheat death and one-by-one Death begins to hunt them down. Many of the deaths are over-the-top and left me shaking my head (The pool drain, being the strangest). It was enjoyable enough, but completely pointless and added nothing new for the franchise. I found the CGI to be overdone and very distracting. All the deaths and action looked very fake because of it. The short-run time is worth mentioning, as the film barely clocked in at over 80 minutes. Probably just as well.

You can just imagine the suits sitting around their big round table discussing how to churn out another financially beneficial Final Destination movie and get away with it. Big suit number one puts forward that they obviously need more inventive mouse trap like deaths. Big suit number two has the genius notion that 3D is again taking off so why not utilise that option too. And that's pretty much all that it took, with the end result being a movie that is very self aware of its roots, but still plays out as the runt of the Final Destination litter.

Just as the director of the first one, James Wong, was brought back to direct part 3, the makers here bring back the director of part 2, David R. Ellis, to direct part 4! Which ultimately proves to be nothing more than some sort of nepotism like factor because The Final Destination is basically just over 82 minutes of poor acting, bad writing and a series of kills weaved together by the odd 5 minutes of barely relevant characterisations (the exposition as painful as the gory deaths!).

The kills entertain as they pretty much always have throughout the franchise, with the opening disaster sequences (here set at a speedway stadium) continuing one of the series' great traditions. While the opening and closing X-Ray/Skeletal credit sequences are superb and a credit to those involved. Yet it all feels so tired, where in spite of the willingness to upgrade the technology, it's still lazy and has nothing to really justify its very being other than that to make easy money.

The makers of part 5 would have to come up with something special to not turn this franchise from being one that was once bright and inventive, into that of a money train joke. 4/10

This was the worst entry in the series for the following reasons:

1. At approximately 80 minutes the film is too short and there isn't any sort of time given to building up tension.

2. Pretty much all of the deaths are given away in the previews, so when someone dies its no surprise whatsoever. By taking away the surprise aspect the movie was ruined.

3. There is even less of a plot here then the other 3. Granted the basic premise is the same but they didn't even try here.

4. The deaths themselves were very "meh" and fake looking. Way too much CGI was used. Not only that but they cut away from what probably would have been the most visually interesting death. 5. No Tony Todd. He was seen in the first 2 and heard in the 3rd one. At this point the fans expect to see him. They should have tried to get him in here somehow.

I could go on and on. I hope that if they make a 5th one that James Wong (who directed the first and third films) returns to give the series a proper send off as the David Ellis entries to the franchise (the second and fourth films) are definitely the weakest links in the series. To his credit though, part 2 did probably have some of the best deaths in the series (opening premonition, fire escape ladder, and plate glass).

I had the displeasure of seeing this movie yesterday and believe me when I say that my expectations were really low...but I did't think it would be that bad! David Ellis has done some decent films, Cellular was very well executed in my opinion, but what happened here I will never know.

Everyone knows that the Final Destination franchise which started as a exercise in suspense and terror descended into parody starting with the sequels. There is no suspense and I hate to say it, every time someone died and gore appeared on the screen, I started laughing. None of it was realistic, not even when blood was coming out of someone's mouth did it look real.

The way people die in films like this are made to be creative, because the kind of audience going to see these films wants to see people die in inventive and gory ways...too bad its just silly. Lets hope this really is the "Final Destination" for this worn out franchise.

The characters were annoying,cast was annoying,nearly every scene have deaths so there were a small and fastened plot,which was bad. But it was still watchable and original bloody carnage movie. Like Hunt's death and the Mechanic-with-no-spine. As I say,the worst of the series,but not boring.