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Ridley Coote

Final Destination 3 (2006) Dir: James Wong

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This third film in the popular disaster horror franchise is the last of those I remember watching as a teenager. It is, however, the one I remember the least of. The film, directed by James Wong, who also directed the first film, looked like it would be fun, and my positive experience with the second film encouraged me.


I have to start with the biggest issue I had with the film, and that's the fact that it was both weird and uncomfortable that two of the actresses, who were both depicting minors, had topless scenes and were generally very sexualised. Honestly, it was really gross and concerning, especially considering that the film is less than twenty years old.


The death sequences were a mixed bag, if I'm being honest. Some were pretty entertaining, some were a bit too absurd and some were kind of boring. There was a couple that I found amusing, but beyond that, they weren't that creative or funny.


The story was also a little bit of a let-down, to be honest. I praised the second film's story for building on the first one, but, unfortunately, this third film failed to do that at all. Instead, Wong's film returned to the same mediocre format of the first film, which was fine, but definitely one-note.


Mary Elizabeth Winstead gave the only half-decent performance in the film, which I think was thanks to her pre-existing talent trumping what was a very bad script. Ryan Merriman was the only other person who gave a passable performance, though he certainly wasn't on the level of Winstead.


The rest of the cast were pretty much all over the place, though, I will still give mentions to some, whose roles warranted as such; Kris Lemche, Alexz Johnson, Sam Easton, Jesse Moss, Gina Holden and Texas Battle.


Overall, I was quite disappointed by this one - it definitely felt like an example of wasted potential. It fell back on the same old formula, and failed to do anything new or interesting. The only saving grace was the film's lead actress, as well as a few individual scenes, which made it a lot more watchable than it had a right to be.



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