Aside from a few exceptions to the rule, whenever a movie series gets to its third or higher installment, originality is pretty much thrown out the window in favor of familiar repetitiveness. That's especially true in the horror genre where there's usually a killer or monster of some sort who/that continues with their spree of death and destruction started or similarly continued in the preceding film(s).
In the first two "Final Destination" movies, that entity was none other than the grim reaper himself. Miffed that a number of young people cheated his calling by barely eluding disaster (a plane crash the first time, a chain reaction highway wreck the second), he then set out to round up those escapees, although he was never personified by the likes of Bengt Ekerot or Brad Pitt.
Instead, he (we're assuming it's a he) was just an omnipresent force who enacted the old "wrong place at the wrong time" scenario for the victims. The fun -- if you will -- or at least the guilty pleasure of the first two films was in the horrific, Rube Goldberg type way that Death dispatched his victims. A heart attack or lightning strike would work, but where's the sport in that?
Instead, there had to be an elaborate series of events leading up to the demise, and fans of such material reveled in that buildup as well as the figurative and literal execution of the plan. And the grislier, more shocking and sudden the deaths (where such fatalities had more visual and visceral impact than in most horror films -- the better (at least for those into that sort of thing).
The same scenario plays out in "Final Destination 3" -- leading us to believe that title is something of a misnomer -- but such material isn't quite as shocking, surprising or "entertaining" (in that guilty pleasure fashion) as it once was. Despite the first picture's filmmakers -- writer/director James Wong and fellow scribe Glen Morgan -- returning after skipping the second outing, things feel a bit duller.
Whether that's due to the filmmaking and/or the familiarity and repetitiveness is debatable (although I put my money on all three), but nearly all of the purported shocking material -- from the initial roller coaster disaster to the various individual deaths -- lack the pizzazz that fueled the original offerings. And for a film where that's the one and only big attraction, that's obviously something of a notable failure or at least a let-down.
As in the previous entries and most such genre films, regular movie artistry is an afterthought, and the majority of the characters are present simply as fodder for the great cinematic meat grinder. Per the horror playbook, however, there's one character -- nearly always a young woman -- who tries to stop what's occurring or at least alert the others about the pending danger.
Here, that's Mary Elizabeth Winstead playing a high school senior who eventually figures out the photos she took at the ill-fated amusement park trip hold clues about who's next on Death's list and how they might die. That's about the only twist on the original stories, but the filmmakers don't really do anything particularly fun or imaginative with such material. While the photos serve as an appetizer for the pending and inevitable Goldbergian sequences, they otherwise don't add much to the proceedings.
Perhaps if the first two films didn't exist, this one might be seem like one heck of a grisly ride. Due to sheer repetition and familiarity, however, most of the thrills and chills are far too muted for this to be considered a guilty pleasure like the first two times around. Although I'm sure the fans will keep this series alive -- at least through this installment -- perhaps its time to put an end to these Final Destinations. The third edition rates as just a 2 out of 10.
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