Film Reviews

Final Destination 3

• Rating:
• Director: James Wong.
• Starring: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ryan Merriman, Alexz Johnson, Kris Lemeche.
• Details: US, 90mins, 15s.

When high school teenager Wendy Christianson (Winstead) has a dream that she and her friends die when they get on a rollercoaster at a local county fair, she believes it to be a premonition. Warning her friends to get off the rollercoaster at the last second, they watch in horror as it crashes and kills everyone on board. Now Wendy and her friends Kevin (Merriman), Erin (Johnson) and Ian (Lemeche) learn that death is vengeful and realise that it will stop at nothing to collect what's owed. Finding new and interesting ways to get killed was always held in high regard for those teens who love to see their peers getting offed in gruesome ways, and where Final Destination differed from most is that that there was no one serial killer on the loose - death itself was hunting them down; the fact that death could spring from anywhere was a real hook. It breathed new life into a tired old genre but with 2003's follow up, the idea became a little redundant as the audience knew that every situation could end tragically. So if the sequel was superfluous, what would Final Destination 3 offer? Not a lot, as it turns out. Writer-director James Wong knew the task facing him and upped the gore factor to stop anyone asking any silly questions. But questions will always, always be asked, 'why bother?' being the favourite.

Review by Gavin Burke