Death, which has previously been played by everyone from Bengt Ekerot (Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal) to Brad Pitt (Martin Brest’s Meet Joe Black) is never sighted in David R. Ellis’ The Final Destination, the fourth installment of the gory franchise that is now playing in 3D. Instead you get a hint of a breeze and the odd threatening message carved into a diner table, as if Death was here earlier but really couldn’t be bothered waiting around for the carnage because he had to do some shopping or return some DVDs.
When Death starts phoning it in you know the film has a problem.
There is a grand metaphysical joke in the idea of Death skipping out, akin to the belief that God no longer takes note of this world, but The Final Destination films are not the place to find that and, besides, death still does a pretty good at a distance (either that or he’s taken a few classes in effective management delegation).
The movie, which follows on from James Wong’s first Final Destination picture in 2000 and then 2003 and 2006 sequels directed by Ellis and Wong respectively, is a sequential series of deaths, usually bloody, that follows on from an unexpected premonition of disaster. In this case it’s at an ageing race-track, where young couple Nick (Bobby Campo) and Lorri (Shantal VanSanten) sit with their friends, former pair Hunt (Nick Zano) and Haley (Janet Cunningham).
Because Nick foresees their death, beginning with a misplaced spanner and ending with the collapse of an entire grandstand, he panics and accidentally starts a brawl, meaning that the meatheads who chase him outside to exact revenge are saved. Within seconds, courtesy of a rogue, skull splitting tire, Death is ticking off those he missed in the order they should have perished. Not surprisingly, the supporting cast goes before the billed players.
It’s obviously a formulaic structure, but its failing is to be perfunctory. The characters are cardboard thin and they barely emit an emotional response to the death toll rapidly growing around them; by the final act no-one’s even grieving as friends are felled. The only role that makes an impression is Hunt, who is played as an insufferably annoying narcissist – Zano has a promising career ahead of him essaying cheating boyfriends, spoilt scions and various strains of villains for cheap Will Ferrell comedies.
Hunt’s death, which was thoroughly enjoyable as it featured him losing his insides to a pool drain, was the only memorable act in a film where the promise is that every scene will surprise. Instead the process begins with an awkwardly balanced item falling, either flipping a switch or spilling some liquid, then something begins to smoulder or roll where it shouldn’t, eventually intersecting with that carelessly placed nailgun or barrel of flammable solvent. There’s also a reliance on metal fatigue, with pins and rails constantly bending and then breaking – there haven’t been this much metal fatigue since the last AC/DC tour.
The selling point is that it’s happening in 3D, which means that you can wear glasses to watch objects jump out at you from the screen. The format isn’t deployed in a particularly imaginative manner: there’s a surfeit of sharp, jagged items waiting to impale the next in line. Occasionally the sheer chutzpah of the filmmakers makes you laugh, but the gonzo artistry this type of movie needs – think of a young Sam Raimi – is nowhere to be found. Dead bored takes on a whole new meaning with The Final Destination.
