The Final Destination

Released: 2009
MPAA rating: R
Run-time: 1:22

For a movie reviewer (and, let’s face it, I’m not one!!), “The Final Destination” presents an interesting challenge.  On the one hand, it clearly is not a good film.  On the other, I don’t believe it really pretends to be.  The schlock-horror genre it belongs to doesn’t really aspire to any dreams of Oscar, so the thought turns to:  Did it hit the mark it was trying to hit?  For this film, it is a mixed answer.  The "Final Destination” series is one that takes an interesting premise (What if you survive when you were meant to die?) and runs it thoroughly into the ground.  I’ve been watching them from the first one and they are simply silly movies that find more and more elaborate ways to destroy people.  Although they are not spoofs, they certainly do not take themselves too seriously and I actually laughed at out loud at how ridiculous every death scene was in this movie.  They even manage to bring to life one of Dane Cook’s great bits (“Did you hear what happened to Mary? She was killed by a tire!” “A what?” “A tire.  It hit her right in the face!!”  “Why was her face near a tire?” “No, this tire came right after her!!”).  I saw this on DVD, so it was not the 3-D version, although I doubt that made much of a difference.  So, bottom line:  Was it any good? For a horror film, no, but for a borderline comedy?  What can I tell you? I had a good time and a few laughs.  What more could you possibly expect??

Grade: C-


Trailer: