Calling "The Final Destination" the worst film I have ever seen would certainly be hyperbole. It would also be false since I've seen 1987's "Ishtar" and Ed Wood's "Plan 9 from Outer Space."
However, calling "The Final Destination" the worst movie I have ever seen while writing reviews for this paper would be perfectly adequate.
I wrote this review for three years during my undergrad career, so this movie beat out several other horrible movies to win this title, most of which had Hilary Swank or Diane Keaton flailing about the screen aimlessly.
Normally, I'd begin a plot synopsis here, but since "The Final Destination" is the fourth film in this never-ending saga, I don't feel the need to delve too deeply into something that is the storyline equivalent of a kiddie pool.
Sufficed to say, an initial group of characters escape an almost certain deathly situation and spend the rest of the movie trying to escape other equally ghastly deaths, mostly to no avail.
Yes, just like the three other movies. Exciting, isn't it?
I will say this new movie did have an added interesting 3D effect its predecessors did not have.
What did this add to the movie-going experience?
Not much, save a splitting headache after I left the theater that all the Aspirin in the Western hemisphere could not cure.
Perhaps I'm too much of an old man to appreciate 3D effects, but body parts and gore flying at me just isn't my cup of tea.
I don't truly understand what this new fascination is with 3D, and it seems like each generation of movie-goers has its love affair with 3D. Now is just our time, I suppose.
Some of the deaths the writers were able to come up with were far-fetched at best, and one in particular, the escalator death scene, conjured up my childhood fears of those dreaded machines.
To this day, I avoid escalators at all costs, as, even at my age, I'm still not entirely sure I won't be sucked up into the machinery to die a horribly painful death.
Is this logical? No. Do I care? No.
Save that death, the film's other snuff-out moments were largely uneventful, and I tried to spend the rest of my time in the theater making a list of things I needed to do once I left.
That only ate up about five minutes of time, so, inspired by the movie, I began to create a list of random ways I could be killed in the movie theater.
Gems like "23. Be bludgeoned to death with an armrest by a crazed movie-goer high on PCP" and "37. Consume popcorn laced with arsenic-based fake butter" quickly came to mind, so I was disappointed when the credits began to roll, bringing an end to my frenzied note-taking.
It's always like that, though; just when you get going at a good pace, it comes to an end.
Do not go and see this film. By paying money to see this wreck, you encourage producers to continue to create crap-tastic remakes like this, and I don't think we should let that sort of happen.
Go play putt-putt golf. Wash your car. Volunteer at a soup kitchen.
Go do anything but see this movie.
Trust me, you'll be better off.
I now have 82 minutes of my life I can never get back, and that makes me livid.
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