James Wong, Director of the original Final Destination returns for the second sequel after missing out on the first sequel. Death has returned and is after a new group of teenagers. This is of course because death enjoys killing teenagers and has no interest towards adults. Nor does death have any interest toward old people, what fun would that be if they can hardly plan out how to escape death. Do you sense the sarcasm? More of the same is what we get with Final Destination 3, same plot, same amount of lame dialogue, same amount of bad acting. One of the only things new that makes Final Destination 3 watchable are the way the teens die.
This is the type of film that someone goes into wanting to see how the boys and girls will die. No one is viewing these films thinking that a wonderful story is going to rise nor that some intelligent script will be written. In this film, death begins straight from the beginning after a group of kids at a fair. There is a big plot hole when a rollercoaster scenes occur between the vision and the reality, but we will save that fir the viewer to figure out for themselves. There is no need to mention all of the young actors in this film because many of them have hardly any prior acting experience. However, the two leads is Mary Elizabeth Winstead playing Wendy and Ryan Merriman playing Kevin.
There is zero chemistry between these two characters and their planning and discoveries of the pattern for death is ridiculous. This is something that you definitely would consider unbelievable. The pattern that the screenplay co-written by Wong himself is to continue figuring out who death will next. This is the main conflict occurring in the film and viewers have to endure it for ninety three minutes. While the first Final Destination was decent enough because it was new and a different type of horror film, the sequels have become watchable only for the gory and brutal deaths. Wong has focuses more on that this time and it seems that the sequels director, David R. Ellis had some influence on him for this installment.
I must mention that if you are expecting some character development from this film than you will be heavily disappointed. We hardly get to know the characters nor their lives and why death is exactly after them. Final Destination 3 is mindless, stupid and at some points, laughable at the idiocy being witnessed. One things for sure and that is that this film has a decent pace where it will not bore anyone. It of course becomes repetitive and predictable, but thats not to say that this film isn't fun at times. If there was ever a positive for this film, that would be it.
With Final Destination 2, Ellis jointed both the original and its sequel as if it was continuous. Final Destination 3 seems like their was a big gap between two and three and that death took a breather for a few years, perhaps. In this installment, we witness more of the barely surviving death and then ruining the pattern. This leaves the two leads Wendy and Kevin to figure out if the pattern is broken who would be next. This film is bad filmmaking, where its style over substance. You never care about the characters in this film to even care if they die or not.
Final Destination 3 is not a typical horror film. I say this because its not scary and there is no visible killer. This is a bad film that will more than likely bring in enough money to motivate a fourth installment. Is there a way of killing death itself? That could be the stupidest question ever asked, but I'm sure that will be something that the dumb teens in the fourth film will attempt. The original film never needed sequels, just like Scream never needed sequels either, but when these type of films continue to make millions, us critics we still have to continue to endure them. Painful.
