The continuation of these Final Destination movies is truly bizarre. There’s a group of young people that escape an improbable disaster because one of them has a premonition in advanced. But then because Death (note the capital D) is cruel and petty, he decides to go forth and collect those that escaped by getting them in more singular, though no less grisly, situations. I could have swore that the filmmakers were pushing things by making a one-note concept into a trilogy, but with new technology we can now do all the same old kills in the wonder of 3-D. And that’s really the point isn’t it, we have here the same old death and dismemberment, presented exactly as it would back in the good old days of the red and blue 3-D glasses.

To me though, the lessons of the Final Destination movies are pretty basic: look both ways before crossing the street, don’t drink and drive, be careful with your power tools and don’t smoke around flammable material. If many of the simple life lessons our parents had given us were followed by the otherwise clueless people who bumble through these movies they might all live to see the end credits. But stupid is as stupid does, a famous man once said. One would think though that if Death has you on a list, you might be more aware of your surroundings, like not walking into an accident-potential treasure trove like a bustling garage, or driving over to a security guards house in the dead of night to light a wooden cross on his front yard.

For bonus stupidity marks, the whole show gets rolling at a NASCAR race. This is a “sport” where people practically show up in the hope of seeing a potential death-inducing accident, just not amongst the spectators grant you. So here we are, watching cars driving in a circle over and over again. A few loose screws here, a broken bench there, and a “fun” and “exciting” afternoon at the speedway becomes an orgy of death and dismemberment for four friends. And I wish I cared. None of these kids stand out for something other than running and screaming as they ream at each other for being cavalier/disinterested/disbelieving about getting scratched off the Must Die List. The only recognizable face is Mykelti Williamson, who I believe was once heard to utter on set, “The best part is when they gave me my money.”

As for the 3-D… Meh. You’re either going to be impressed by it or you won’t. The two young ladies that were sitting in front of me were definitely impressed by it, though I think they were in the “shiny things” phases of one of their final high times of summer vacation. Things come flying at the film screen be they fireballs, car wreckage or an implement for impaling. On one or two occasions, CG blood and guts get flung at you, and I have to admit that it was rather cool, but there’s really no sense that anything new is being done and once again I get bored waiting. If there’s a bright side, it’s that the film moves along at a rather brisk pace, so you don’t have to worry about sitting there long.

Basically, The Final Destination proves that there are only so many ways to kill somebody, even in 3-D. A massacre only matters when you care about the guys getting massacred and there’s an element of surprise to it, this has neither. I will say that it was well made, and that director David Ellis knows how to stage horrible kills very well, but the film is ultimately so pedantic and predictable that’s it hard to even not to care. So while Final Destination, as a franchise, has shown a lot of growth over the last 10 years in terms of technical achievement, it’s proof that you can’t make the same film three different times and expect people to buy it the same way. For something so cool looking, it’s actually quite dull.