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1/29/2019

Final Destination 3 (2006) - Winstead bores in Wong's dumb turkey



Something goes haywire on a rollercoaster full of young people on this excitement-building poster for James Wong's Final Destination 3


A deadly rollercoaster accident is presaged by our protagonist, who gets off the ride in the last moment along with a group of morons, as the accident actually takes place, whereupon the saved individuals begin dying one by one ...

Final Destination 3 is written by Glen Morgan (Willard (2003)) and co-writer/co-producer/director James Wong (The One (2001)), who also directed the franchise's first film, Final Destination (2000)).
Boring Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Sky High (2005)) is our lead, and she plays across from Ryan Merriman (In the Rough (2017, TV-series)), who plays a boring guy, and the rest of the cast is rounded out by college-aged twits, one stupider than the next.
The opening disaster is a lot of fun and handsomely staged, but apart from that the film, including its elaborately staged death scenes, is pretty lame. Nothing from the previous two films is reinvented, and nothing is added to the established rule book of Final Destination either.
Final Destination 3 is a really poor one, SPOILER and it has an enormous train-centered finale, which seems like it is simply added to boost the running time.

Related posts:


2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

Final Destination franchise: Final Destination 2 (2003) - Ellis's sequel is a ridiculous but impressive and entertaining array of wicked mayhem
Final Destination (2000) - Wong's entertaining death chiller kicks off a lucrative fatalistic teen franchise (also directed by James Wong)




Watch a clip from the film here

Cost: 25 mil. $
Box office: 117.7 mil. $
= Big hit (returned 4.70 times its cost)
[Final Destination 3 premiered 9 February (Thailand) and runs 93 minutes. Shooting took place in Vancouver, British Columbia from March - June 2005 with reshoots in November 2005. The film opened #2, behind fellow new release Pink Panther, to a 19.1 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent one more week in the top 5 (#5) and grossed 54 mil. $ (45.9 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 15.8 mil. $ (13.4 %) and Germany with 4.9 mil. $ (4.2 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 2/4 star review, translating to a notch higher than this one. Wong returned with Dragonball: Evolution (2009). Winstead returned in Bobby (2006). The franchise continued with The Final Destination (2009). Final Destination 3 is rotten at 43 % with a 5/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Final Destination 3?

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