| The Final Destination | |
|---|---|
Theatrical poster |
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| Directed by | David R. Ellis |
| Produced by | Craig Perry Warren Zide |
| Written by | Eric Bress |
| Based on | Characters by Jeffrey Reddick |
| Starring | Bobby Campo Shantel VanSanten Mykelti Williamson |
| Music by | Brian Tyler |
| Cinematography | Glen MacPherson |
| Editing by | Mark Stevens |
| Studio | Zide/Perry Productions LivePlanet |
| Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
| Release date(s) | August 28, 2009 |
| Running time | 82 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $43 million[1] |
| Box office | $186,167,139[2] |
The Final Destination (also known as Final Destination 4, previously known as Final Destination: Death Trip 3D) is a 2009 American supernatural horror film written by Eric Bress and directed by David R. Ellis, both of whom also worked on Final Destination 2. Released on August 28, 2009, it is the fourth and was intendedly final installment to the Final Destination film series, and the first to be shot in HD 3D. [3]
Contents |
Nick O'Bannon (Bobby Campo) has a premonition in which a number of people die when McKinley Speedway collapses following a crash. Nick panics, persuading his girlfriend, Lori Milligan (Shantel VanSanten) their friends, Janet Cunningham (Haley Webb) and Hunt Wynorski (Nick Zano), security guard George Lanter (Mykelti Williamson), mechanic Andy Kewzer (Andrew Fiscella), mother Samantha Lane (Krista Allen), racist Carter Daniels (Justin Welborn), and Andy's girlfriend Nadia Monroy (Stephanie Honoré) to leave, escaping seconds before Nick's vision becomes a reality. As Nick is explaining what he saw to the survivors, a stray tire flies off the stadium and obliterates Nadia.
Just days after the disaster, Carter attempts to burn a cross on George's front lawn, but it backfires when he is set on fire and blown apart by his tow truck. The next day Samantha also dies after her eye gets perforated by a stone propelled by a lawnmower outside the beauty salon. When Nick and Lori hear of the deaths, they research about premonitions and learn about the previous disasters then they realize that Death never meant for them to survive and is now coming for them.
While Janet and Hunt refuse to believe, Nick convinces George and Lori to help him conquer Death's plan. The group try to save Andy, but he is killed after a carbon dioxide tank drives him to a chain-linked fence, but Nick gets new visions and they split up to save Hunt and Janet. Lori and George successfully rescue Janet from a malfunctioning car wash, but Nick arrives at the pool too late to save Hunt, who dies when he's unable to pull himself free from the pool's vacuum system as it disembowels him.
George considers suicide but is unable to kill himself, leading the survivors to believe that saving Janet had stopped Death's plan. Nick decides to take Lori on a holiday, but she has already gone to the mall with Janet. While at the theater, Lori begins to see odd warnings suggesting they are not out of danger as Nick realizes that there was another survivor: Jonathan Groves (Jackson Walker). Jonathan is crushed by a bathtub just before Nick and George can make it to the hospital, and George is run over by an ambulance shortly thereafter.
Left on his own, Nick arrives at the theater just in time to save Lori from an explosion that kills Janet and several others. However another explosion causes the mall to collapse, and Lori is annihilated by the escalator. Just as she dies, Nick awakens outside the hospital and realizes it was all a vision, but is not able to save George from his fate. Thanks to his vision, Nick is able to locate the source of the initial explosion and extinguish the flames.
Two weeks later, the trio celebrates their survival in a cafe. Nick begins to take notice of new omens surrounding him, and begins to think that maybe they weren't meant to die at the race track, but their deaths are meant to happen somewhere else. Just as he says this, a series of events cause a semi to crash through the front of the cafe, killing all three, leaving no survivors of the McKinley Speedway incident.
Tony Todd did not appear in this movie at all. He would return to the series as William Bludworth in "Final Destination 5" a few years later.
After the success of Final Destination 3, which was initially planned to be in 3-D,[4] Eric Bress wrote a script, which impressed producer Craig Perry and New Line Cinema enough to green-light a fourth installment. James Wong was on board to direct, but because of scheduling conflicts, he decided to drop out. Consequently, the studio executives opted for David R. Ellis to return because of his work on Final Destination 2, who personally accepted because of the 3-D.[5] For the 3-D, Perry said that he wanted it to add depth to the film instead of just "something pop[ping] out at the audience every four minutes."[6]
Although shooting was to be done in Vancouver, which was where the previous three films were shot, David R. Ellis convinced the producers to shoot in New Orleans instead to bring business to the city, and because the budget was already large.[7] The opening crash sequence at "McKinley Speedway" was filmed at Mobile International Speedway in Irvington, Alabama. Filming began in March 2008 and ended late May in the same year.[6] Reshoots were done in April 2009 at Universal Studios Florida.[8]
The film was released in 3-D as well as in conventional theaters on August 28, 2009. It was initially planned for an August 14 release.[9] It is also the first 3-D film to feature D-BOX motion feedback technology in select theaters.[10]
According to USA Today and Newsday, Final Destination 4 debuted as the top of the North American box office, beating Rob Zombie's Halloween II, by earning $28.3 million during its first weekend.[11][12] It is also topped the box office in the UK.[13] The film remained #1 at the box office in North America for two weeks. On September 11, 2009, it gained a little more than a million dollars and dropped to #7.[14] The film has grossed $66.4 million domestically, $119.3 million in foreign sales, and $186.5 million worldwide.[2]
The film received mostly negative reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 30% of 94 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 4.3 out of 10.[15] Among Rotten Tomatoes' "Top Critics", which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs, the film holds an overall approval rating of 0%, based on a sample of 9 reviews. The site's consensus is that "With little of the ingenuity of previous installments, The Final Destination is predictable, disposable horror fare." Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 0—100 reviews from film critics, has a rating score of 30 based on 14 reviews.[16]
Many critics opined that "the series has clearly run out of ideas".[17] "The biggest sin of The Final Destination is its general lack of imagination," said one.[18] "It's death porn, pure and simple," said another.[19] "Whatever hints of originality lay in the series' previous editions have been all but sucked out of this one," spoke Jordan Mintzer of Variety.[20]
Some positive reviews referenced its "OK sense of humor","swift [progression]" and "effective opening sequence of racetrack destruction that puts its Fusion 3-D technology to good use".[21]
The Final Destination was initially scheduled for a DVD and Blu-ray Disc release on December 22, 2009. The film was pushed back to January 5, 2010 in the US. Both the DVD and Blu-ray included two pairs of 3D glasses in each cover and had a 2D version on the menu, along with additional scenes. Only the Blu-ray version included two alternate endings, a "making of" featurette about the deaths, storyboard visualization and a preview of the new film, A Nightmare on Elm Street.[22] The Blu-ray release is also a combo pack includes a standard DVD of the film.
In Target stores, some of the DVDs include an exclusive Final Destination comic book.
The soundtrack album was released on the 25th of August in 2009, three days before the film's theatrical release, under public record label JVC/Sony Music Australia. The album consists of 23 cues composed and mixed by Brian Tyler. He took over scoring the series after the untimely death of the composer for the first three films, Shirley Walker. (Ironically, none of Walker's scores for the previous films have been released; this was the first film of the series to have a score album.)
The CD features the score composed by Brian Tyler, omitting commercially released songs that were featured in the film.
| The Final Destination (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) | |
|---|---|
| Film score by Brian Tyler | |
| Released | 8/25/09 |
| Label | JVC, Sony Music Australia |
The soundtrack attracted generally favorable reviews. Christian Clemmensen of Filmtracks.com gave the score 3 out of 5 stars and said Tyler was "capable... to further explore new stylistic territory while making substantial use of the structures and tone of [predecessor composer, Shirley Walker's music." His approach to the scores were called "intelligent", and provides "adequate if not strikingly overachieving recordings is testimony to his immense talents."
The reviewers were also impressed with the extension of the sound used by Walker in Final Destination 3. "It relates to an affection for Walker's contribution to the industry," says an unnamed critic.[25]
A SoundNotes reviewer grades the film with an impressive score of 7.5 / 10, remarking "Brian Tyler slugs his way through the inadequacies of The Final Destination and produces a score with reasonable entertainment value and enough of an appeal to make it function well apart from the woeful film." [26]
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