FINAL DESTINATION — * — Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ryan Merriman; rated R (violence, gore, profanity, nudity, vulgarity).
For two movies, the makers of the "Final Destination" films have teased us with that clearly misleading title. But let's just hope that "Final Destination 3" really is final entry in this successful but intellectually bankrupt horror franchise.
Admittedly, the horribly contrived, almost Rube Goldberg-like ways in which characters meet their deaths was gruesomely amusing at first. But the first two movies pretty much exhausted the possibilities, so this time around the killings are more gory and brutal.
That alone makes this installment somewhat repellent, but the fact that it's clearly being marketed to teens is downright irresponsible (despite the film's R rating, the ads are all over youth-oriented cable television outlets such as MTV).
This time around, it's high school student Wendy Christensen (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who has a premonition about her death. Unfortunately, she's too late to save her boyfriend (Jesse Moss) and best friend (Gina Holden), who are both killed in grim fashion during a roller-coaster ride.
Wendy has the feeling that death isn't done with her and a handful of others who didn't ride the ill-fated coaster. That belief is reinforced when she discovers that photos she took that night seem to reveal how each of them will meet their death.
But after the first two survivors (Crystal Lowe and Chelan Simmons) burn to death in a tanning salon, Wendy and Kevin Fischer (Ryan Merriman) desperately try to find ways to avoid their final fates.
The premise alone is ludicrous, but the ham-fisted way in which co-screenwriter/director James Wong has his characters allude to the events of the other two films is so dumb it's laughable. And in addition to upping the gore quotient, Wong has thrown in some gratuitous nudity.
Worse, his cast appears to be going through the motions. Winstead may have impressed in last year's "Sky High," but she's sullen and unlikable here, and Merriman (2003's "Spin") is hopelessly bland.
"Final Destination 3" is rated R for graphic scenes of violent deaths (including automotive mayhem, impalings and various body parts being crushed), strong gore and blood, occasional use of strong sexual profanity, some female nudity, and use of crude sexual slang terms and other sexually suggestive humor. Running time: 92 minutes.
E-mail: jeff@desnews.com