Destino final 4

For me, a rating of 5 out of 10 means I didn't like the movie, but I didn't hate it either.

"The Final Destination" is a 3D horror thriller gimmick. Even though I saw this in 2D, there were many elements that were very obviously designed to be in 3D to take full advantage of the medium.

However, the film itself just isn't good.

The acting is terrible. The story is formulaic. There's nothing really interesting as far as the plot. No discussion of death. No new interesting concepts. Lots of fluff in the form of false kills. And the entire film from the opening credits to the closing credits is about the methods in which these people die.

What this movie is really about is killing young, attractive individuals in a manner which will compliment the 3D. Nothing else. It's just killing people using a Rube Goldberg device or a flying object in 3D.

Some of the special effects are good, and a few of the deaths are interesting, however, the film doesn't really do anything for me. It's just kind of there. I don't really hate it, but I don't really like it either. I also don't really care for 3D in general. I think it's a stupid way of getting you to pay a little extra, like IMAX (which is a bigger screen and some extra speakers. Yaay).

Overall, if you like the 3D gimmick; you're just looking for a movie to take a few friends to and have a little fun; and you don't really care about plot, characters, or story, you might have some fun. To anyone else, I wouldn't really recommend it. It's just a studio gimmick and can be easily ignored.

5/10 - Nothing special.

The Final Destination series is another guilty cinematic pleasure, similar to the Saw series, the Hostel films and before that, the Friday 13 and "Nightmare" movies.

It has been two years since "The Final Destination" hit movie screens and it now plays fairly often on premium channels such as HBO or Encore. This movie and the series in general differs from other horror movies such as the Scream series in that the predator "Death" is unseen. All of the FD movies follow the same general premise: a group of teens escapes from death in a catastrophe only to have "death" follow them (you can't escape your destiny, right?).

Each successive movie offers new and spectacular ways for good-looking young people to die. TFD starts out at a NASCAR type race, which is a social comment: the underlying reason many people go to such races is for the possibility of a violent and spectacular crash. Yet a soulful young man has a premonition that there will be mayhem and guides his three friends and a small pack of hangers-on to safety.

The spectacular crash happens and "Death's" methodical predation of the survivors begins. To discuss the various ways people die would court spoilers but the writers of TFD put some wonderful humorous touches in what is a very taut and lean script (one of the complaints about the movie is that it is too short). A young mother has her two boys put tampons in their ears to protect their hearing from the loud stock car engines, for example. In another scene, a racist stalks the black security guard from the car race and during the mayhem that ensues, the War song "Why can't we be friends?" plays on the radio.

Some reviewers lament the lack of character development in TFD, but they're missing the point. Most of the characters are either caricatures (the racist, the angry redneck, the cowboy) or eye candy (the four core teenagers who try to thwart death). The most interesting main character is Hunt, the roguish, sexy blond young alpha male. A sequence at a pool involving Hunt is one of the most clever and ironic in the entire movie. Without giving too much away, let's say that Hunt's problems start when he tries to retrieve a treasured "lucky" coin.

TFD also contains a clever "movie within a movie" scene. The script also contains symbolism for coins, water, and America's love affair with the car. Admittedly these are nuances that the average moviegoer is likely to miss. At the same time, the movie has flaws, such as a contrived scene in a hospital and an annoying homeless character who pops up in a couple of scenes. Overall, the production team has succeeded in giving FD fans and new viewers a thrill ride of gory, guilty pleasure.

Arriving on local theaters without the benefit of 3-D, the novelty of "The Final Destination" goes doubly kaput, as it not only lacks inspired deaths and sympathetic characters, but also because the flatness of David R. Ellis' body bag-fodder isn't mitigated by whatever shallow entertainment an additional dimension might have brought.

Eric Bress' script wastes no time in shaping its interchangeable characters as, apparently, Death has to immediately dive into placing its cardboard victims in intricate fatalities that have been the series' central gimmick. Nick (Bobby Campo) experiences a premonition of a disaster in a race track and manages to get a few people out, who would have otherwise died. As per the franchise's tradition, Death won't be cheated and it starts to do anything -- like toppling cans and letting waters drip -- to create a ripple of events that would eliminate the survivors.

Despite showing how lame entertainment can be entertainingly lame with "Snakes on a Plane," Ellis -- who also directed "Final Destination 2" -- doesn't strive for an ounce of creativity, resulting to a terribly disposable fare that fails to hit its its mark despite aiming so low. And as embodied by the narrative shortcuts this gorefest constantly employs, the Rube Goldberg set pieces start to feel less impressive than mechanical, which makes one believe that Death has worked itself too much over the last three installments.

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.

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).