'The Final Destination' Movie Review

Thus, when the crash occurs, those eight are spared from certain death, and, if you've seen any of the movies in the series, you know what's next. Each of the people who cheated death begins to die in freak "accidents" in the order in which they would've died had they stayed put, as death itself seeks to settle the score. Nick and his girlfriend Lori (Shantel VanSanten) recognize the pattern and team with George to try to stop it.

The Final Destination is the epitome of the dumbing down of the population. It's all flash and no substance, as any pretense of character depth, plot development, and writing or acting skill is thrown out of the window in favor of 3-D gore. It's less a movie than it is a series of gore set pieces tied loosely together with a recycled plot.

And amazingly, although it's clear that more attention was paid to the kills than to anything else in the film, the deaths aren't even particularly good. They're cartoonish and ridiculous -- like everything in the movie. Beginning with the car crash -- in which 52 (!) people die and the stadium comes crumbling down -- every death scene is insultingly improbable. Chain link fences cut like Ginsu knives, the smallest sparks cause atomic explosions and one pool drain-related death in particular has to be one of the most asinine kills in horror history. Such exaggeration could work if the film had enough of a sense of humor to allow us to buy into the silly deaths, but it's otherwise bland and straight-faced.

How anyone can receive credit for "writing" a movie that just copies the three previous films, plot point by plot point, is beyond me. Beyond the utter predictability, the dialogue is flat and perfunctory and even for a horror movie, the characters are wafer thin and missing any sort of back story. Are they in college? Do they have jobs? They seem to be independently wealthy and have nothing better to do than to golf, shop, plan vacations and, of course, watch NASCAR.

The Final Destination is amongst the worst cinematic embodiments of the short-attention-span YouTube generation (I like how the protagonists find "tons of stuff" on Google about people cheating death and later dying in the order in which they would've had they not escaped -- thus conveniently explaining the entire plot in 30 seconds.). It's shallow exhibitionism that replaces depth with gory visuals and gimmicky kills that try way too hard to provide 10 seconds of thrills before the audience moves on to the next one-hit wonder. Personally, I'd rather watch Keyboard Cat.

• Acting: D (There's a reason you've never heard of the four main stars.)
• Direction: D (Never misses an opportunity to thrust a 3-D object in your face.)
• Script: F (A dumbed-down rehash of the three previous movies.)
• Gore/Effects: C- (A large amount of gore pulled off cartoonishly; mediocre digital effects.)
• Overall: D- (Shallow, dim-witted, poorly executed and despite the 3-D element, distinctly one-dimensional.)