Final Destination 3: Thrill Ride Edition
Directed By: James Wong
Studio: New Line
Year: 2006
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 (Anamorphic)
Running Time: 1 Hr. 33 Mins.
Rating: R (For Strong Horror Violence/Gore, Language and Some Nudity)
Audio: 6.1 DTS-ES (English), 5.1 Dolby Digital (English), 2.0 Dolby Digital (English)
Subtitles: English and Spanish
MSRP: $29.98
Street Date: 25 July, 2006
Review Date: 16 July, 2006
(Ratings are out of five stars)
Summary
I’m willing to admit that I’m a Final Destination fan. I thought the first film was one of the better post-Scream horror movies, and while the second film was a dud, it featured some of the greatest death sequences I’ve ever seen. Much like the Friday the 13th films, I can tolerate a lot of cinematic crap in these movies to see the payoff of carnage and gore. Unfortunately, I was busy at work when the third entry was released at theaters, and I missed it completely. After watching the film, I can truly say I’m sorry I missed it. That make’s me 0 for 3 seeing these films theatrically, and while they’re hardly cinematic classics, I had a really fun time watching each one.
As you can surmise, Final Destination 3 (like the first two films) opens with a jaw-droppingly complex death sequence (this time on a roller-coaster). Hearing the rumors over the last few years got me quite excited at this proposition and the finished product mostly paid off. It wasn’t nearly as well orchestrated as the freeway catastrophe in the second film, but there are few things in this world more fulfilling than watching annoying characters picked off one by one in horrible fashion. As was the case with the second film, most of the characters are forgettable and the plot is thinly put together, but the direction really shines. Final Destination 3 marks James Wong’s return to the series since directing the first film. He does an excellent job of creating a very sinister tone and weaves in some amazingly creative death scenes. When I was a kid, I watched the Friday the 13th films for the death scenes, and I can definitely say that the Final Destination series has eclipsed F13 in magnitude.
The radiant Mary Elizibeth Winstead, who plays the film’s main character Wendy, is also staring in the upcoming remake of Bob Clark’s classic Black Chrismas (ironically written by FD3’s writer/director James Wong). Winstead is a natural, and performs at a level above the rest of the group. Her co-lead, Kevin is played by Ryan Merriman. Merriman who started out playing the typical “cute kid” role is really becoming a horror vet. He was in Halloween: Resurrection a couple years ago and made an appearance in The Ring Two (as well as the short film Rings) last year. I found him mostly annoying in those films, but he’s definitely grown as an actor for this one. Series veteran Tony Todd voiced the Devil at the entrance of the roller coaster during the opening of the film. I was hoping for more of him, but beggars can’t be choosers (though his voice did briefly appear at the end of the film). Another horror vet, Kris Lemche stars as one of the secondary characters. Lemche turned out solid performances in Ginger Snaps and Marc Evans’ excellent My Little Eye. Overall, the acting was a little sub-par, but not as bad as the second film. The plot is a retread of the first two movies, but the narrative and editing were both stronger than the second film. Bottom line is I wasn’t expecting originality and wasn’t disappointed. The films’ interesting (if a little convoluted) take on fate makes the series a little more complex than the common teenage slasher. I wasn’t too happy with the ending, but I’m certainly in for another sequel if they decide to make one.
Film Rating:
Video
As expected, this is another top-notch transfer from New Line. Lines were sharp without edge-enhancement and colors were very rich and vibrant. Shadow detail was very high with no banding or obvious gradient lines. Flesh-tones looked natural and accurate. I mentioned that I wasn’t able to see the film theatrically, but I would guess that this is a very film accurate transfer. Robert McLachlan (also returning from the first film) provided the cinematography and I must say that, aesthetically speaking, the film looked great. This is reference quality material here. The only possible flaw I could find was a little grain during some of the night scenes toward the end of the film. I still consider that a natural element of film, so it didn’t bother me.
Video Rating:
Audio
Final Destination 3 really put the DVD through its paces sonically speaking. The soundtrack comes in two multi-channel varieties, Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS-ES 6.1 discrete. I chose the DTS track, and was quit impressed. The soundstage is very large, and all channels are used effectively. There’s a solid amount of LFE without sounding over-used. The dialog sounded accurate without any presence of hiss or other sonic anomalies. The loud and bombastic score is also presented very well.
Audio Rating:
Extras
The big extra touted on the front of the package is the ability to watch the film in
Choose Their Fate mode. It works by prompting the viewer to choose heads or tails when a character is about to die. It’s actually a fairly interesting feature, albeit one I would never go through unless I was reviewing the film. If you prevent certain deaths, it caused the film to end early (I think the earliest I was able to get was about 25 minutes). There are some alternate scenes thrown in to actually maintain continuity with the heads/tails decision you made. It may just be a marketing ploy, but New Line pulled it off.
The only other special feature on the first disc is a
Feature Length Commentary with Writer/Director James Wong, Writer Glen Morgan (who will be helming the aforementioned Black Christmas remake), and Director of Photography Robert McLachlan. All parties involved were very informative as to the film’s intentions and had many production anecdotes. If I recall correctly, there’s a commentary from Wong and Morgan on the first film, and after listening to this one, I may have to go back and check out the original. You can argue the cinematic importance of the film, but the production team is made up of some pretty smart people. There was a little amount of dead space in the commentary, but nothing too drastic.
On to the Disc 2 features…
It’s All Around You (7:00) – An interesting cartoon featurette about the nature of fate and the human need to quantify the odds of dying.
Dead Teenager Movie (24:35) – A documentary inspired by a phrase coined in Roger Ebert’s review for the first Final Destination film. It features a lot of commentary on the teen horror genre and more specifically the Final Destination films. There are some interesting thoughts from Wong and Morgan, as well as others peripherally involved with horror genre. What could have been repetitive became a damn good commentary on the horror genre.
Kill Shot: The Making of FD3 (1:28:00) – The DVD gives you the option to watch this section as one big documentary or as 10 separate sections. The documentary takes you all the way from pre-production through the release of the film. As you can imagine from a featurette that is as long as the film, it provides a very detailed look at the making of the movie. Some of the material is presented in production diary fashion, with a lot of interviews from the cast and crew recorded after the fact.
Severed Pieces (13:08) – Like the previous doc, Severed Pieces gives you the option to watch everything at once or in 6 separate sections. It’s short but shows a lot of the technical aspects of the film (sounds, miniatures, explosions, etc). A very nice companion to the primary doc.
Extended Police Station Scene (One Shot Version) (2:33) – A pretty self-explanatory extended scene.
The DVD also features promotional material from FD3, previews of other New Line films, and DVD-Rom features.
Extras Rating:
In Closing…
I went in to this DVD expecting a ho-hum movie, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t have a great time with the film, and an even greater time with the extras. New Line has outdone themselves and bent over backwards to provide a near flawless film experience. The commentary and extras provide a level of detail that I really wasn’t expecting. I only wish it was possible to provide this caliber of DVD for all mid-level horror films. To those of you out there who can appreciate this kind of carnage, I highly recommend this DVD. Maybe it was my low expectations, but I had a great time with this one and will add it to my perennial list of HTF October Scary Movie Challenge films.
Overall Rating:
Matt Stone
16 July, 2005
