BEFORE: OK, I am back from vacation in North Carolina - not-so-funny story, I was very paranoid about watching "Final Destination 2", a film that starts with a horrible highway accident, just before going on a long drive on several highways. I mean, if you believe in premonitions and superstitions, you might just want to avoid the first film in this series before traveling on an airplane, or, as we established, also avoid listening to John Denver music before a flight. By extension, maybe don't watch the second film just before a long-distance drive.
Anyway, there was an accident on I-95, just north of Petersburg, VA, but fortunately it was on the other side of the highway, northbound, and two cars flipped over, but nobody was hurt. Well, I figured that was the end of the "curse" until we continued a little further and found ourselves driving behind a truck with a bunch of logs on it - and that's what caused the accident in "Final Destination 2". I hadn't told my wife about watching that movie, but I did tell her I was a bit uncomfortable driving behind the truck, and she felt the same way. I said, "Do whatever you have to do, slow down, speed up, pull over, but this is not where I want to be." And I think we pulled into a rest stop at a Wawa or something, but we for sure got out from behind the logging truck.
The rest of the trip went well (see below, though) and I celebrated a birthday down in North Carolina, we went out for Chinese Buffet the day before and my sister ordered in a nice meal on the day itself, plus chocolate cake and some chocolate stout I had just bought. And I got to hang out with my father for a few days, we worked on some jigsaw puzzles, I'm much faster than him but I slow my roll when we're working on a puzzle together. My sister said my visit lifted his spirits, he hasn't been doing so well since my mother passed, but he perked up a bit while we were there.
Anyway, Tony Todd (or at least the voice of Tony Todd) carries over from "Final Destination 2".
THE PLOT: Wendy Christensen and a group of teens who escaped a fatal roller-coaster accident face a bloody date with Death.
AFTER: No lie, the other big thing we did down in North Carolina was to attend the N.C. State Fair, it's a really big deal down there, my sister lives near Raleigh, and that's where the fair grounds are. So I was JUST at a big fair, four days ago, and now this "Final Destination 3" movie starts off at a fair with a defective roller coaster? Well, the saving grace here is that I didn't go on any of the rides at the fair, like many other people, I was there for the food. I saw at least a hundred posts on Instagram about "Here's Everything I Ate at the NC State Fair", sure, like anybody else would care about what YOU ate, who gives a crap, why are you wasting everyone's time with a list, in the end it's not important at all, hardly worth talking about.
So, here's a list of what I ate at the NC State Fair: a crab rangoon egg roll, a "Yam & Ham" sweet potato biscuit with country ham, a couple of my wife's nachos, an order of loaded "Mega Tater Tots" with ham, cheese, chives inside and hot honey and bacon on top, a deep-fried Scotch egg, and a deep-fried apple hand pie with cinnamon ice cream, then we got giant donuts to go, mine was a PB&J, with peanuts and peanut butter outside and raspberry jelly inside. I took a pass on a few items when the lines were too long, most notably I skipped the crab empanadas and the "Boss Hog", which was pork belly burnt ends served over fries with white BBQ sauce. We didn't end up eating the donuts until yesterday morning, when we had our first pit stop on the 2-day drive home. All the food was great, and a lot of planning went into deciding WHAT to eat, and the night before working out a path through the fair to get all of those things, with a minimal amount of excess walking. This was a "surgical strike" on the fair, sure we spent some time indoors at the arena checking out the sampling stations (Cheerwine and ice cream) but after four hours, we'd eaten our fill and we were headed OUT of the fair, and since it was late afternoon there was a big crowd coming in after work or school, so we avoided all of that. It was still fairly busy on a Wednesday afternoon, but I'd rather go then instead of a Friday or Saturday or the day when everyone can bring in 6 cans of food in exchange for a ticket, those days would be like wall-to-wall people.
Again, we did NOT go on any rides - my wife's not into roller coasters but she has stood by while I've gone on the Cyclone or the one at the New York New York casino in Las Vegas. Well, tonight's film would seem to justify her distaste for thrill rides - because if you never go on one, then you'll never be involved in an accident on a fairground ride. Well, we love that North Carolina State Fair, but there were 5 people injured on a ride there back in 2013, and then there was a malfunction on a ride last year, some people got stuck up in the air for a while but nobody was injured. It's really the same reason I don't go swimming at the beach, as long as I don't I've got like a zero percent chance of being eaten by a shark. And I think I'd be a tasty snack for one, considering how much BBQ and fair foods I eat.
So this film ends up about the wisdom of NOT going on a roller coaster, as high-schooler Wendy has a premonition of an accident, and she watches all of her friends die and then herself, in much the same way Alex saw the plane explosion in the first film and Kimberly saw the giant highway pile-up in the second film. They have these visions of the future for a reason, because after they get over being scared shitless they can take action, get off the plane or don't get on the highway, or, yeah, umm, get off the roller coaster in a panicked state, I'm sure the amusement park staff just LOVE it when that happens. Once Wendy realizes that her premonition isn't just regular fear leaving her body, it's definitely coming true, she tries to tell everyone that the track is broken and the electronics of the ride have not been maintained, and for her effort she is merely thrown out of the ride. But she did manage to convince a few other people, and Kevin, her seatmate, started a fight with Lewis, the football star, and then a bunch of other people were made to leave the ride as well. Those people were mad at first about not getting to ride the coaster, but their feelings turned to relief when pieces of their friends started to rain down from the coaster.
I'm sorry, but the real loser here is Jason, Wendy's boyfriend, who just HAD to sit up in front on the coaster, and even before Wendy's premonition, when she expressed that she was nervous about the ride and wanted to sit in the back, Jason still took the front seat and sent Kevin back to look after Wendy. This is terrible boyfriend behavior, if your girlfriend is anxious or nervous, you ride with her, duh, not just because it's the chivalrous thing to do, but if she's scared she's going to want to grab on to somebody, and Jason really should have made sure that was HIM and not Kevin. Just saying. Wendy, you're better off without him, because he didn't really care about you. Oh, sure, he asked to be let off the ride but only AFTER Wendy was removed and the ride had already started moving, and that's some really weak sauce, bro.
I'm just three movies into this franchise, and already the pattern is nearly exactly the same, the survivors research accounts of premonitions and they learn about Flight 180 from the first movie (which was six years ago at this point, in both movie time and IRL) and it doesn't take long for them to figure out that Death is stalking them even if they can't see it coming, but it's coming for them. So it's JUST the first movie again, but on a roller coaster this time, just like the second movie was just the first movie, but on a highway instead of a plane. There's a bit at the end of tonight's film that takes place on the NYC subway, so we're knocking off both trains and roller coasters tonight, where will the NEXT film take place, on a boat?
Wendy also took a lot of pictures for the school yearbook, which seems a bit weird because usually the yearbook is supposed to be full of the kids AT SCHOOL, OK maybe in the high-school play or on the football field, but why would the yearbook print photos of the students going to a fair or amusement park? They would do that on their own time, unless this was some kind of organized class trip, but I don't think that it is. It's important to the plot that Wendy got pictures of all the people who were being stalked after the accident, because that gave her clues about how each one might die - but it's still hard to believe she would take photos of them at the fair for the yearbook. Sorry, screenwriter, this makes no sense, please try again. Also, it really strains credulity to say that the photos "predicted" their cause of death. Like the thinnest of clues are used here to predict the future, like if the photo was over-exposed somehow that means the person is going to burn up or die in an explosion. You know, sometimes a bad photo is just a bad photo.
Also, NITPICK POINT, who's to say who would have died in what order aboard the roller coaster accident, especially for the people who were kicked off the ride? Since they didn't die, what evidence is there to suggest the order in which they WOULD HAVE DIED if they stayed on board the ride? And now Death is making sure to kill them in exactly that order, because the Grim Reaper has OCD or something? It's hard to believe these people would get so caught up in finding the logical order in a very illogical thing, which is being stalked by Death and killed because somehow surviving an accident is a thing that needs to be rectified ASAP. Somewhere there are people who have brushes with death or they survive accidents and then they live for 20, 30, 50 more years, it's been known to happen. Now we're being told that if you survive an accident or you miss that doomed flight or you overslept on 9/11, well, that's it, the clock is ticking for you because Death is right around the corner, he's got a new plan for you.
The fear that emanates from this franchise is all about the lack of control, finding out that your death could come at any time, and even knowing about it coming may not allow you to prevent it. It's going to be a random signpost falling on you, or a nail gun at work that falls on you (or you fall on it) and you'll have no say in the matter. BUT that's real life, every day, at any point you could trip and fall in the shower or your house could have an electrical short or you could die in a bizarre gardening accident, and if you're a thrill-seeker it's even worse, your parachute might not open or you could realize too late that your bungee cord is not connected on the other end. Well, sometimes Death doesn't even need to try that hard.
We celebrate the attempts to defeat Death here, even if they end up being fruitless. Well, we all have to go sometime, and you can't just sit around in your house all day and go nowhere. That's my plan for the next couple of days, after cheating death by surviving all that deep-fried food at the fair AND a bunch of Carolina BBQ a few days later. However, I will have to go back to work this week, and I'm scheduled to fly back down to NC a few days before Thanksgiving to watch my father for a few days while my sister's family works at the Macy's parade. I don't really feel comfortable being in charge of another person for 4 days, but there will be home health aides to assist me, so there's that. And I get a free turkey dinner (or something) out of it - I cashed in a bunch of SkyMiles so it won't really be costing me a lot to make that trip. But first I've got to get there, finish my October films and then a reduced number of November ones.
Directed by James Wong (director of "Final Destination")
Also starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead (last seen in "Black Christmas"), Crystal Lowe (ditto), Ryan Merriman (last seen in "The Ring Two"), Kris Lemche (last seen in "In Time"), Alexz Johnson, Sam Easton, Jesse Moss (last seen in "Tucker and Dale vs Evil"), Gina Holden (last seen in "The Butterfly Effect 2"), Texas Battle (last seen in "Coach Carter"), Chelan Simmons (last seen in "Good Luck Chuck"), Amanda Crew (last seen in "She's the Man"), Maggie Ma, Ecstasia Sanders (last seen in "Hot Tub Time Machine"), Jody Racicot (also last seen in "Black Christmas"), Patrick Gallagher (last heard in "The Tiger's Apprentice"), Dylan Basu, Alberto Ghisi (also last seen in "She's the Man"), Stuart Cowan (ditto), Harris Allan, Alexander Kalugin (last seen in "Miracle"), Nels Lennarson (last seen in "Horns"), Jacob Rupp, R. David Stephens, Andrew Francis (last seen in "Agent Cody Banks"), Cory Monteith, Grahame Andrews (last seen in "The 6th Day"), Tony Morelli, Nesta Chapman, Dustin Milligan (also last seen in "The Butterfly Effect 2"), Jim Shield (last seen in "Seventh Son"), Lou Bollo, Colby Johannson, Keith Dallas (last seen in "Say It Isn't So"), Michael Stewart, Victor Ayala, Agam Darshi (last seen in "Colossal"), Dylan Basile, Matt Ellis (last seen in "Rememory"), Che Aimee Dorval, Jackie Jenkins Jr. (last seen in "The Lovebirds").
RATING: 4 out of 10 charms on Julie's "good luck" bracelet
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