A “Final Destination” revisit: “Final Destination 3” & “The Final Destination”

It’s time to continue on with my revisit of the “Final Destination” series. For this review, I will be talking about the 2006 sequel, “Final Destination 3”,’ and the 2009 sequel “The Final Destination.” I will also be talking about “Final Destination 5,” but that will have its own separate review!

In the 2006 entry “Final Destination 3,” six years after a group of high school students first cheated death, another teen has a premonition that she and her friends will be involved in a horrifying roller coaster accident.

When the vision proves true, the student and her fellow survivors must deal with the repercussions of cheating the Grim Reaper.

The third installment of this horror franchise does a decent job continuing the series’ exploration of fate, mortality and the consequences of cheating death, while introducing new characters and fresh twists to the series’ established formula. Now while this movie’s scares and death scenes are still creative, this sequel just doesn’t quite feel as fresh as the first two installments.

“Final Destination 3” is still really entertaining and the movie can deliver a good amount of suspense. The roller coaster premonition that’s featured in this sequel is easily one of the most intense premonitions in the series. 

This 2006 entry to the series does seem weaker than the first two movies. Now, even though this sequel does feature some decent scares here and there, there’s only a few moments that can be sort of memorable and lacked a bit of the excitement that the 2000 and 2003 movies had.

In the 2009 sequel “The Final Destination,” while enjoying a day at the track, Nick

O’Bannon has a horrific premonition of his friends and him all dying in a freak accident involving many race cars. Mere seconds before the vision comes true, he manages to convince them to leave.

Although they cheat death then, the survivors each begin to meet a grisly end, and Nick tries to figure a way to escape a similar fate.

Just like the 2006 movie, “The Final Destination” (which was intended to be the last of the series) can be a fun, entertaining experience that delivers the usual crazy deaths and intense moments that the series is known for. Yet, this is the movie that really lacked most of the thrills that fans of the series can enjoy and most of the humor that is thrown into the movie makes this installment not that intriguing.

While some of the visual effects in this movie were just okay, the filmmakers used quite a bit of CGI since they were presenting this movie in 3D for its theatrical release. Quite a bit of the CGI can really take you out of the movie and makes the scary death moments that the series is known for not so scary at all.

“The Final Destination” definitely wasn’t as inventive or memorable as the others. In fact, as I was getting ready to go through this series for these reviews, the fourth movie was the only one where I could barely remember anything much about it (except for the race track premonition). The race track premonition sequence can be a little entertaining, yet the rest of the many sequences that should be thrilling and exciting just weren’t that thrilling. 

In this edition, you can also find my takes of “Final Destination 5” (which was actually better than these two movies) along with “Final Destination: Bloodlines” (a sequel that fans of the series are sure to enjoy!). And, with my “Final Destination 5” review, I will also include my own ranking of the series (including “Bloodlines”).

You can currently stream the entire “Final Destination series” (obviously except for the new movie) on the Max streaming service (or very shortly it’ll be re-branded back to HBO Max … again). 

FINAL DESTINATION 3 TIDBITS

• Tony Todd, who portrayed William Bludworth in Final Destination (2000) and Final Destination 2 (2003) provides the voice of the devil above the entrance to the roller coaster. He also provides the speaker's voice saying, "This is the end of the line" in the subway towards the end of the film.

• The cast members on the roller coaster had to ride it 26 times on the same night in order to shoot the film's main premonition scene.

• The ending was reshot, reportedly because of unfavorable reactions at preview screenings. This also happened with the previous two films in the series.

• Like both Final Destination (2000) and Final Destination 2 (2003), the post-disaster deaths are foreshadowed in the opening credits.

• After reshooting the ending in the winter of 2005, production of this film finally wrapped on January 31, 2006. The film opened on February 10, 2006, only 10 days after the film was finished.

• The title was previously known as "Cheating Death: Final Destination 3" and "Final Destination 3-D". 3D was considered for the film, but it was deemed too expensive and complicated.

THE FINAL DESTINATION TIDBITS

• During the car wash scene, Haley Webb actually broke the car window when she was pounding on it. The editors left the shot in.

• (at around 41 mins) When Nick is driving he pulls up to a sign that causes him to have a premonition, the sign is clearly marked Clear Rivers Water. Clear Rivers is a central character in both Final Destination (2000) and Final Destination 2 (2003).

• The film's McKinley Speedway accident is similar to a real life disaster: the 1955 Le Mans disaster, a 24 hour endurance race, in which a multi-car collision launched an engine block, hood, and other wreckage into a packed crowd of spectators, killing an estimated 84 people in total. The deaths included spectators being cut in half by the flying hood "like a guillotine," the engine block crushing a swathe through the crowd; an explosion and fire also occurred, which added to the death toll.

• The only Final Destination film that does not include Tony Todd, due to his scheduling conflicts with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

• This was one of the last films to be theatrically released by New Line Cinema until it was merged with its sister studio Warner Bros.

• The first film in the "Final Destination" series to be presented in 3D.