My Review of Final Destination 3 (2006)

 

Written by Glen Morgan And James Wong

Directed by James Wong

Kevin: "Is there something wrong?"

Wendy: "The train..."

Kevin: "Oh Shit! Not again!"

I'm halfway through this franchise and it's all very familiar as to what to expect. If Alex and Kimberly worked as protagonists who were visionaries, then I guess Wendy Christensen (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) did too.

She's a high school and a night at the amusement park with her boyfriend, Jason Wise (Jesse Moss) and their friends, Kevin Fischer (Ryan Merriman), Carrie Dreyer (Gina Holden) got chaotic with the inclusion of Ashley Freund (Chelan Simmons) and Ashlyn Halperin (Crystal Lowe), Frankie Cheeks (Sam Easton), Lewis Romero (Texas Battle), and goth couple Ian McKinley (Kris Lemche) and Erin Ulmer (Alexz Johnson).

Yup, they all went on a certain ride in the amusement park that should've killed all of them on the spot but only Jason and Carrie perished while the rest of them survived. Throw in a sisterly rivalry of sorts between Wendy and Julie (Amanda Crew) and things got a bit heavier here.

While Alex and Kimberly spent their respective movies dealing with cynicism on all sides and trying to save lives, they weren't quite as full on about it as Wendy was. She's the ultimate control freak. I guess that made her failure to keep the survivors still alive even worse.

I mean there's some truly horrible deaths in this one but both Ashley and Ashlyn getting barbecued to death in those sunbeds was one of the worst I've seen. The rest are pretty gnarly but they don't really top that one if I'm being honest.

As for Wendy, did this film really kill her off at the end? It seemed to be the end of her and the remaining survivors and it certainly felt fitting, given the events of the film. 

- Tony Todd had a voice cameo as the voice of the Devil/subway train conductor. Cory Monteith and Dustin Milligan had small roles in the movie.

- John Waters listed this as his favourite from this particular franchise. High praise indeed.

- Standout music: Tommy Lee's version of Love Train.

- Chronology: Six years after the events of the first movie and set in Pennsylvania.

Final Destination 3 isn't as good as the first two movies but it had some gruesome kills, an interesting enough use of the Devil and I guess Wendy Christensen made for a decent protagonist.

Rating: 6 out of 10