Nick saves his friends' lives after a premonition of a catastrophic accident while they attend a Nascar car competition, in which wrecked cars invade and kill spectators sitting in the stands. But it will be difficult to escape death's plans for a second time.
Let's face it: the idea that underpins the entire Final Destination series, born in the now distant year 2000, is without a shadow of a doubt one of the best that American teen horror cinema has ever given birth to on the threshold of the new millennium, and its debut served as a jolt in a landscape mired in the quicksand created by Wes Craven's famous Scream. At that time the situation had become untenable: thrillers aimed at young audiences were springing up from everywhere, trying in vain to copy the aspects that had decreed the success of the prototype such as the intelligence of playing with stereotypes, that healthy taste for the macabre, and that rare ability to make fresher and more inviting a narrative matter that already counted numerous illustrious examples. In these clones, however, no real artistic talent could be glimpsed: all efforts were concentrated on designing the new mask behind which the face of the traumatized boy on duty who all of a sudden discovered himself to be passionate about the 'hobby of killing. It is hard to deny it but this conclusion made "too much" of a trend and even today there are those who dust it off giving the impression that it is more used as an easy loophole to get the weight of the knockout ending off their chests. It is in this bleak context that fits Jeffrey Reddick's brilliant, if not totally original, intuition, developed together with the pair James Wong and Glen Morgan, to completely eliminate the overused human figure of the hooded killer, who by then had become a ball and chain, and to leave the stage to those who had always acted behind the scenes: the lady with the scythe relegated until then to reverence the passing psychopath. The operation did not, fortunately for us, turn into a trivialization of this figure, endowing her with a new and more particular face, but rather took the form of a veritable visual handbook of the most everyday dangers that our existence might hold in store for us. Such a film could only feed on the fears, tensions and insecurities of the adolescent populace, the one that is always incited to the wildest fun, to acting without thinking about the consequences the next day and to thinking that the world, when one is young, is a big apple to be consumed sparingly. For these reasons, any complaint that the choice of protagonists fell on the usual age group of 18-25 years old leaves time to be found. And it could not have been done otherwise since the whole of adolescence is a true test, a period during which we face very hard and titanic battles with the hope of succeeding at least in part in preserving our selves and not being brought down by external events.
The plane crash of the progenitor is in itself the most effective metaphor of all four chapters: the failure to depart represents the failure to take flight in our lives, it is one less experience that we will miss terribly in our time of need when we no longer feel the ground beneath our feet. The struggle between two human beings, the personification of good and evil, is shifted to the inner level and becomes a contest with ourselves, because after all, death is an integral part of our lives. So if there was a horror work that at the dawn of the twenty-first century could rise as a new generational symbol, it could only be Final Destination. The idea behind the project was certainly stimulating, but at the time it was being made, no one could have predicted the hype and excitement that its release aroused among sleepy youth audiences. A new standard for teenage horror had finally been born: it was hard to turn back and close one's eyes to this cinematic prodigy.
A tangible appeal that continues to this day to proselytize, and the results speak for themselves: The Final Destination, the fourth and probably final installment in the series, is currently at the top of the most-watched film charts in America, overcoming rival Halloween 2, and the credit for this success cannot be attributed to the simple introduction of 3D technology. But how did they manage to debunk a narrative formula that was already showing signs of breaking down in the third episode? Simply by not doing it: it may sound strange but that is exactly what happened so much so that this new chapter gives precisely the impression of being the collection, the "best of," of all the best moments of the entire saga. The director, David R. Ellis, stated in an interview that the film is by no means devoid of novelty: just look at the opening incident, in which the predestined victims are basically passive in their watching, from the comfort of their seats, a famous Nascar race. Apart from this peculiarity, the main structure of the film has remained essentially unchanged: we have a protagonist (this time male as in the first episode) prescient who experiences firsthand and wide-eyed the vision of the deadly catastrophe that would shortly come to take his and his friends' lives. After averting the disaster, the black lady will begin to claim the souls of the people who were saved because one cannot escape indefinitely from one's fate no matter how sad it is.
While rather weak on paper when compared to the opening incidents of the predecessors, when all is said and done, the car-crash and the effects to which it gives rise work brilliantly, and a typical situation of chaos and panic is created in which everyone tramples on the behavioral norms to be followed in case of danger. We will see various types of objects arising from the gigantic sinister strike in the most truculent ways at unsuspecting spectators and not only that: any complement of the stadium will show its sharpest and deadliest side.
The Final Destination is not only the fastest episode of the four ( the total duration barely reaches 80 minutes) but also the one with the most deaths, and every effort was made to make them as different from each other as possible. The most spectacular and splattering mise-en-scènes have been combined with more subtle sequences of deaths, almost as if to return to the simplicity of the first episode that was intended to make the deaths look like plausible unforeseen events. Some of the deaths were inspired by the most conspicuous news stories from the American crime news, which has always stood as the main source for fomenting the creativity of the screenwriter on duty. In addition, considerable efforts have been made in the search for new scenarios to serve as a backdrop for the surreal departures of the unfortunate protagonists: the trend of turning the most peaceful and harmless outing into a real journey into horror continues.
Those who have benefited from some slight character changes are the various roles who now appear more grateful and less hostile toward those who brought them to salvation, as opposed to the barbs seen earlier. Indeed, it is precisely the most angry and vengeful characters who mockingly leave the stage early. With the return of Eric Bress behind the story compartment, the lighter turn that had characterized the second installment, where everything took place in the light of day to relieve the drama of some situations, is resumed intact here as well, and the charisma of that work is revived. Admirable is the willingness not to make the story smarter than it is with some last-minute additions to turn the tables.
Whether you want it or not this is "The" (as the original title itself says) definitive Final Destination and audiences going to see it in theaters around January 2010 already know what to expect: a throbbing, frenetic marathon of splatter sequences that leaves zero time to think but not to enjoy its obvious qualities. It is hard to imagine an end to the latest installment of one of the most exhilarating horror series for teenagers and beyond.
Review by Editor
