Project-Blu ‘Final Destination 3’ Canadian Import Review, by Nate Boss

Final Destination 3

By: Nate Boss, 7.23.2009

The Movie Itself:
 If the Final Destination 2 review weren't a hint, I'm one of those people who finds the series to be a one trick pony. I'm dreading the news of a fourth installment...or should I say, dreading the thought of being forced to watch it. It would be reminiscent of my experience with Final Destination 3, for sure. This review will be my second viewing of the film.

When you have an hour and a half ahead of you, filled with a film you find to be absolute shit, with a laptop in hand (to record notes, sure beats pen and paper!), you can say the temptation to just say "fuck it," and carouse the web in hopes of finding midget snuff porn was immense...and let's just say that's not a porn genre I'd ever want to see. My extreme lack of desire to see such a porn is somewhat the point of that sentence, one of those times where you'd gladly inflict pain upon yourself to make your brain forget about a different pain.

Same shit, different day. Wendy Christensen (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is on a senior trip to an amusement park, when she has a premonition about an impending disaster. No, there won't be any planes crashing into the park. No, a runaway truck and trailer won't kill everyone. Killer. Rollercoaster.

When she causes a stir and gets herself and (most of) her friends kicked off the ride, bad shit starts to happen. One by one, they're getting picked off in unusual, bizarre ways. Can a new life be brought into the world to prevent death?...shoot, wrong sequel, sorry. Can death be forced to skip a turn (like in the game of LIFE!), and be thrown out of whack, preventing future deaths in the chain?

Wow. Just, wow. Who knew death was such a fucking dumbass. I didn't, that's for sure. I wouldn't throw curveballs at the embodiment of the end. These teens, well, they don't know any better. Just like death was given the middle finger in the second film in the series, with the stupid baby/recessitation twist, death is now given the middle finger while being raped (in a very uncomfortable position), as all you have to do is not die, and you'll live! Of course!

I'm not even being sarcastic. I wish I were. Such an original plot twist. I can't imagine the writers sitting around a table saying "hmmm......perhaps they don't die by not dying! Of course! Free round, on the house, and somebody dispose of that dead hooker's body!," even though it seems to be the most likely of probabilities to explain things here. My belief is simple: This was a film that was just some random ass goofy horror/terror flick, that had the Final Destination name thrown on it, a few things changed around, and tadow, name recognition at the box office for an otherwise unwatchable film.

Again, like in Final Destination 2, these douches immediately begin spouting their flight 180 bullshit and theories, before anyone who has been saved actually dies. I can't imagine, in the real world, when you are miraculously saved from disaster (it happens all the time. A few celebrities had brushes with death on 9/11, but survived due to not making flights), that you instantly start thinking "zomg, I saw this in a movie, I'm going to die by being bitten to death by a horde of chihuahuas, I just know it." Yet, that's the way EVERYONE in the entire world thinks, according to the Final Destination series.

I have more questions, of course, or should I say baffling observations. Eh, you choose. What was death doing hanging out at an amusement park on senior night? Seriously? The guy would be eons and eons old, as old as time itself, yet he's at some shitty as third rate amusement park, trying to pick up on some barely legal strange? Isn't that a bit creepy, even for death? Death, the literal cradle robber!

Why, oh god why, do we get a singalong sequence? To Rollercoaster of Love? In a tanning salon? With cuts back and forth of two girls taking turns reciting lines? Why? Why, why, why? Real people don't do this! Hollywood, that's not how real life works! Not even the obligatory partial nudity in this sequence can prevent it from being one cringe after another...just like this film.

Final Destination 3 says you're more likely to die on the way to a theme park than at a theme park. I'd have to agree with that statistic. Here's another statistic for you fact whores out there: You're more likely to want to die due to the extreme levels of boredom put out by this rancid film than you are if you choose to avoid it. Final Destination 3 is the dog shit in the middle of the sidewalk, just waiting to get stepped on. It could be your shoe it clings on to next!
Rating: 1/10

The Presentation:
Oh boy, here comes the meat and potatoes...Time to judge an Alliance Blu-ray release like it were in trial, and I'm not talking one of those fun trials, either.

Funnily enough, this is not that bad a job. One of the better Alliance releases, with one glaring issue that prevents it from being quite strong, really.

The film itself is presented in an AVC MPEG-4 encode in 1080P (woo). Sadly, it is not in the OAR (original aspect ratio) for the film. Much like a movie shown on broadcast TV in the 80's and 90's, this film has been altered to fit your (16x9) screen. Where once there was a 2.35:1 ratio, there is now 1.78:1.

Anyone who says this picture isn't cropped, and that you are getting the full DVD picture is absolutely full of shit. Doing a side by side with the widescreen DVD and this Blu-ray import, it was obvious that the DVD had details on the side a bit further than the Blu. It isn't drastic, but it is beyond noticeable. There are a few things that are absolute no-no's as far as I'm concerned, beyond blurring out items in a film for "objectionable content," bleeping vulgarities, or that sort of censorship to create a new, more friendly version of a film, and the altering of what is on the screen is the absolute worst in my book. They shot the film with a certain lens to create a certain picture aesthetic for a reason. I get it, broadcast cable networks will alter a pic, opening it up, since the black bars seem taboo still to the unwashed masses (they're still out there). That's fine and dandy, they can air it as they like. But they best not RELEASE it to stores in that manner if they have the rights to distribute it as well.

As you can guess, the rest of the video details don't really mean shit, but here they are...

The film has an average grain level, nothing obtrusive, it's no big deal. The film is fairly colorful and bright, and this Blu-ray represents this in a good way. Contrast is flat, and blacks are somewhat mediocre. Colors do bleed a bit, some black signs with red writing are nigh unreadable. Some backgrounds are noisy, while the neon lights in the tanning beds are super busy and noisy, in other words, flat ugly. The film is very flat, two dimensional. A shame, as the print itself is the opposite of Final Destination 2, as it is free from dirt and scratches. One final note: there are some halos to show outlines around special effects, that are quite obvious, due to their cheap and shitty look, but I do not believe them to be the result of edge enhancement.

The audio for Final Destination 3, like other Alliance releases, defaults to the lossy track, though a flat out startling DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is available through the menu. Yup, for once, I found something other than a film itself to be worthwhile on one of these imports. Color me shocked.

First, bass presence. It kicks Final Destination 2 in the groin in the same way that Final Destination 2 was a kick to the groin to its audience, like Final Destination 3 was a kick to the face, then groin, then face again was. Where once there was no real presence, suddenly, there is! It's a 180 of sorts, where atmosphere and effects have a hearty rumble to them at times. Nothing extraordinary, but still, a massive improvement.

Next, surrounds. Goodness gracious, this film has an active sound design!!! From the opening sequence with the swooshing noises giving a bit of directionality, to the entire amusement park sequence, we're given a full and lively sound stage. At the park, you hear swooshing of coasters all around you, chants and yells in the background like Pentecostals speaking in tongues, non stop environment. After this sequence, though, the surrounds are a bit overly loud compared to everything else, creating that dreaded forced atmosphere effect, where the rare "too much" level has been attained.

The premonition sequence on the coaster is something to be heard, it sounded so freaking awesome. What was a bit less than awesome, though, was fidelity, as in, the lack of it, it's quite lame brained. There is no real high range to speak of, not even in the screaming of teens, or the screeching and grinding of spokes, gears, and rails.
Rating: 5/10 ( 4/10- video, 7/10- audio)

The Extras:
None. Nada. Zero. Zilch. If you want extras, wait for the New Line domestic release. The same would also apply if you want a Blu-ray that doesn't look like ass.
Rating: 0/10

Overall:
I know, it's my fault for continually submitting myself to the torture known as reviewing Alliance Blu-rays. I can't help it. Somebody's gotta do it, right? Right? People are starting to catch on. Alliance titles are becoming harder and harder to move, which sucks, as I prefer to sell them once I finish reviewing them, so that they don't infect the other Blu-rays in my shelving units with the SUCK virus.

An awful film. Flat fucking awful. A turdtastic video transfer. A decent audio mix. No extras. Do I really have to say avoid this one? Shouldn't it be obvious by now?
Rating: 3/10