The Final Destination (2009): The Last Stop for the Franchise

Starring: Bobby Campo, Shantel VanSanten, Haley Webb, Mykelti Williamson, Jackson Walker, Nick Zano, Andrew Fischella, Krista Allen, Justin Welborn, Stephanie Honore, and Lara Grice.

Directed by: David R. Ellis

Rest in piece, dear 'Final Destination' movie franchise, for you have been sucked dry of fresh ideas, originality, and most importantly of all, inventive death sequences. Rest in pieces, indeed, as the film's tag-line states. The film's title even refers to this as being the last in the series, hence "The Final Destination".

Being the fourth film in the franchise, "The Final Destination" continues the series' trend of coming up with new ways to kill people. The series started off with creative and magnificent ideas which slowly decreased in quality as each entry in the franchise progressed. However, in the fourth film, it becomes very apparent. The death scenes in "The Final Destination" are subpar at best and nothing really special with the exception of a car wash scene and the film's opening sequence.

Speaking of opening sequences, this one involves a huge racetrack accident that makes very good use of the film's HD 3D technology (which the third film was meant to have but it was deemed too expensive at the time), it is perhaps the one and only great sequence in this film that is best viewed in 3D compared to everything else.

There were actually a few moments in this movie where they could have done so much more with the 3D - for instance, one death scene involves a victim trapped in a swimming pool that is 'draining' out and he literally gets sucked into the drain, insides and all, but all we get to see is a cutaway shot right before the gore kicks in - now what good is that? There was a similar scene at the end of "Alien: Resurrection" where the main alien got sucked out into space through a small crack on a glass window, it was perhaps one of the goriest visuals I had ever seen, nothing was hidden in this sequence.

Overall, "The Final Destination" and its series has grown and matured like the franchises of Freddy Kruger, Jason Voorhees, Leatherface, and Michael Myers. If they do proceed with future films, then I guess we can expect to see the Grim Reaper working his 'death magic' in space or perhaps in medieval times? One can only imagine what they will do next with this franchise.