Final Destination 3 Review
by Steve Rhodes (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)February 9th, 2006
FINAL DESTINATION 3
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2006 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
FINAL DESTINATION 3, easily the best of the series and the only one I could at least marginally recommend, starts off very effectively. In a long sequence set during grad night at a garishly lit amusement park, the story's victims wander aimlessly, not realizing that the Grim Reaper has their names on his dance card. Well, all except one are oblivious to the horrors that await them. Wendy Christensen (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), who is there with the yearbook's digital camera to record it all, senses that a large number of the students are about to perish on the roller coaster. Her vision comes too late, so that she is only able to save some of them. The sounds and lights of the big disaster are done quite dramatically and believably so that, even if you haven't been afraid of roller coasters before, you may think twice about ever riding one again after viewing FINAL DESTINATION 3.
This R-rated thriller has the teens dying gruesome deaths on the ride and later. Wendy and Kevin Fischer (Ryan Merriman), her girlfriend's boyfriend, are among the kids who survive the initial ordeal. In no time, Wendy is beginning to get premonitions of the subsequent demise of those who "cheated death" on the coaster.
Kevin, who apparently has not seen any of the FINAL DESTINATION films, discovers that this has all happened before on some airplane flight. Wendy realizes that the photos she took on grad night hold clues as to how those still among the living will meet their end. Kevin and Wendy come to believe that if they can prevent subsequent fatal accidents, which are always causing by elaborate and fascinating Rube Goldberg sequences of events, then the person they save will no longer be slated to die. The key to the puzzle is that the kids must die in the exact order that they would have had they stayed on the doomed roller coaster.
The movie does a good job of blending serious fright with funny situations. There are none better in this combination than the deaths that occur at the Phoenix Tanning salon. The school's resident bimbos, Ashley (Chelan Simmons) and Ashlynn (Crystal Lowe), strip down to bare boobs -- the film uses its rating well here -- in order to make their perfect golden tans even more richly golden. Suffice it to say that death by tanning is both humorous and horrible.
Only in a shameless 9-11 reference is the movie ever bad. But, it is never as good as the long opening, so, if you have only fifteen minutes to spend watching something, I can definitely recommend its beginning. The rest is fairly good too, at least relative to the rest of the teen terror genre.
FINAL DESTINATION 3 runs 1:32. It is rated R for "strong horror violence/gore, language and some nudity" and would be acceptable for teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, February 10, 2006. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
