Main cast: Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Wendy Christensen), Ryan Merriman (Kevin Fischer), Kris Lemche (Ian McKinley), Texas Battle (Lewis Romero), Alexz Johnson (Erin Ulmer), Jesse Moss (Jason Robert Wise), Sam Easton (Frankie Cheeks), Crystal Lowe (Ashlyn Halperin), and Chelan Simmons (Ashley Freund)
Director: James Wong
After the mess that was Final Destination 2, James Wong must have decided that he might as well take over the direction of the next sequel so as to minimize the collateral damage caused by sequel decay to the franchise. But how do you bring some freshness to a concept that has long lost its shock value?
Final Destination 3 is basically a rehash of the previous two movies, only this time, we begin in an amusement park. Our heroine Wendy Christensen is hanging out with her friends as one last hurrah before they graduate from high school and go separate ways. Wendy has a premonition that terrible deaths will occur if they persist on staying on a roller-coaster ride. Wendy manages to convince a few of her friends as well as some strangers to get off the ride, and they can only watch as her boyfriend and other disbelievers die a gory death afterward. Of course, Death won’t be cheated that easily, so Wendy and the survivors are dead people walking… or are they?
If you have seen the previous two movies, you will know what you will get here. The level of gore in this movie seems to be deliberately higher than usual, which is always a good thing as we are talking about credibly scary gore here and not some low budget scenes with ketchup blood and dried sausages. The script also ramps up the dark humor which is conveyed successfully through a generally competent cast and polished direction. The real issue here is the really bland leads that leave no impact on me whatsoever. Who cast them and did the casting criteria include the ability to bore everyone to sleep?
All things considered, this movie doesn’t break any new ground, but it’s competently delivered, pretty good at places, and does it job adequately. It’s not a bad movie for a boring afternoon, really.
