Spring Break
'Final Destination 3': Say cheese and die
Ian Pugh
Issue date: 2/17/06 Section: Entertainment
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The second sequel in the Final Destination series finds a predictably familiar scenario to start things off: Young teenager Wendy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) receives a psychic vision of deathtrap du jour - a roller coaster this time around - and her subsequent screaming manages to keep a few teenagers from attending the ride before it goes haywire. Unfortunately, that means that death's design has been mucked up again, so the Grim Reaper must take up his scythe to dole out some invisible justice to his grand schematics. What does that mean, exactly? Well, you see, prior to the roller coaster accident, Wendy took several pictures of her friends - and when folks start dying, she realizes that their mode of death corresponds with an "unintentional" visual coincidence from the photo. Just a warning: Death's got a cruel sense of humor.
Despite the repeated premise, however, the film somehow manages to break off into something inspired and self-sufficient. Whereas the first films dealt with teenagers attempting to run away from the stark inevitability of death, Final Destination 3's script takes an interesting turn to the death's-gonna-getcha premise of the series: Wendy's attempts to decipher the visual clues of her photos do not seem to be a means to protect themselves from death but merely a way to figure out how it is that they are going to die. After all, as humans we are already blessed-cursed with the knowledge that we will all die one day, but we are often overtaken by the morbid curiosity involved in figuring out just how we will die. Furthermore, the fact that the invincible death force of the film seems to provide numerous "clues" in the photos but still manages to flout them, is a clever take on the essential cruelty of nature.
The death scenes in the film can appear a little needlessly cruel at points - the first of which being a double-death courtesy of some "overheated" tanning beds. But whereas the first two Final Destination films are just overtly nasty, black comedy runs deeply in the veins of number three, where the exploitation is conscious of itself and those Rube Goldberg-inspired deaths just keep getting more and more ridiculous - the kind of stuff that's always designed to end with a painful groan from the audience. No points for guessing that a death scene will be accompanied by the Ohio Players' classic tune, "Love Rollercoaster," but get a load of the very moment when the would-be victims realize that something's wrong - right when the song reaches the infamous background scream that has spawned many an urban legend. It'll take a strong stomach and a full expectation for gore to get the ball rolling for you, but scratch the surface and you'll find a movie with a real brain in its noggin.
Despite the repeated premise, however, the film somehow manages to break off into something inspired and self-sufficient. Whereas the first films dealt with teenagers attempting to run away from the stark inevitability of death, Final Destination 3's script takes an interesting turn to the death's-gonna-getcha premise of the series: Wendy's attempts to decipher the visual clues of her photos do not seem to be a means to protect themselves from death but merely a way to figure out how it is that they are going to die. After all, as humans we are already blessed-cursed with the knowledge that we will all die one day, but we are often overtaken by the morbid curiosity involved in figuring out just how we will die. Furthermore, the fact that the invincible death force of the film seems to provide numerous "clues" in the photos but still manages to flout them, is a clever take on the essential cruelty of nature.
The death scenes in the film can appear a little needlessly cruel at points - the first of which being a double-death courtesy of some "overheated" tanning beds. But whereas the first two Final Destination films are just overtly nasty, black comedy runs deeply in the veins of number three, where the exploitation is conscious of itself and those Rube Goldberg-inspired deaths just keep getting more and more ridiculous - the kind of stuff that's always designed to end with a painful groan from the audience. No points for guessing that a death scene will be accompanied by the Ohio Players' classic tune, "Love Rollercoaster," but get a load of the very moment when the would-be victims realize that something's wrong - right when the song reaches the infamous background scream that has spawned many an urban legend. It'll take a strong stomach and a full expectation for gore to get the ball rolling for you, but scratch the surface and you'll find a movie with a real brain in its noggin.
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