Three-peat

My friends with the occasional "free movie sneak preview" passes came through again tonight, and so I found myself at Final Destination 3. This is another one of those movies where any review I give probably doesn't matter -- this is either your kind of movie, or not; you're going to see it, or not. It's even easier than usual for you to make that decision here, since this particular gimmick has had two predecessors already.

But, if it does matter, I'm giving it a B-. Mind you, this is based solely on a scale of what you expect from a movie of this nature. You want to be grossed out, maybe have a few laughs, and have some decent suspense. You're not looking for an Academy Award winning performances or insightful themes to debate over dinner with your friends afterward. So... B-.

In my opinion, this one is by far the most digusting of the three movies. I guess that stands to reason. You have to raise the bar each time with the ridiculousness and gore involved in each death. And the visual effects and makeup effects in realizing the gore in this movie are top notch. Most of the people I was with had to look away at one point or another.

But, in the negative category:

First of all, the most laughable thing in this movie wasn't actually the Rube Goldberg-ian manner of any one particular death, but was rather the one scene of gratuitous nudity. I understand you expect nudity in a horror/gore movie. I also understand there are some who would say that no nudity is gratuitous. But let me tell you, this is not flattering stuff. The lighting in the scene is pretty ghastly. It's almost like staring at corpse boobs. But hey, if that floats your boat... please don't tell me. In any case, it was just transparently, laughably unnecessary, even by any reasonable "standards" one might expect in this genre.

Secondly... okay, look, I understand that you generally have to check your brain with your coat at the door when you see this kind of movie. You can't go expecting all the logic to completely hold up. But unfortunately, there was a big issue for me, very early in the film, and it took me a while to get past it. I guess it was because it's the nature of this series that "everything means something," so I maybe was expecting for this error I spotted to be somehow explained away later.

Fortunately, I can describe my problem without spoiling anything about the movie. After all, you already know it's about a roller coaster. And you know how the other movies go: you see your death, avoid it, then Death comes after you with a vengeance to settle the score.

We're shown exactly how the roller coaster is going to crash, in the "vision" of one of the characters. We're shown a specific detail, related to one of the other characters on the ride, that starts the whole nasty death ball rolling. And then, once the "vision character" pitches a fit and gets a bunch of people to exit the ride, the "character with the detail that causes the accident" is one of the people who gets off. Without this detail, there shouldn't even be an accident. And yet, the roller coaster goes on, and the people who did not get off die in the freak accident that somehow still ensues. We're not told how that came to be.

In a movie that's basically all about the details, this seems like a big deal to me.

Of course, ultimately, I got over it, remembered why I was really there, and relaxed to enjoy the spectacle. And got basically what I was looking for out of the movie.

So, if you were planning to stay away from this movie, you're very right to do so. And if you were planning to see it, then keep that plan on the calendar, because I think you'll enjoy it.