The Final Destination

The forth instalment of the Final Destination franchise sees Death cheated on once more. I can picture it now. Death sitting at home with a cup of coco before bed, planning a date at the race track for the following afternoon. Sunshine in the sky, the adrenaline of speeding cars, a dodgy spectator stand and careless mechanics, all making for the perfect goodnight kiss of carnage, destruction and multiple fatalities.

Unfortunately, a member of the new gang of 20 somethings, lets call him, Bad Actor, just happens to have a premonition of his impending doom and decides, death, no thanks!

As with the previous offerings, the gorgeous characters are then picked off one by one, this time with set ups so stupefyingly absurd they make Final Destinations 1,2 and 3 seem like reconstructions of real life events on an episode of Crimewatch.

The ridiculousness isn’t the problem. The whole point of the Final Destination series, embarrassingly for us the audience, is to watch on with anticipation and delight as Death burns, chops and explodes its way through nameless pretty faces. Hopefully, making them just as nameless and not so pretty by the end of it all.

The problem is the death scenes are all the same. A bit of wind from a fan or some water makes an everyday item fall improbably onto a lever or some other contraption, starting a domino effect that will somehow cut some ones head off or blow up a cinema. Why, in an area so affluent homeless men treat pennies with distain, does everyone own a fan anyway? Haven’t they heard of air conditioning? Maybe it’s a global warming thing? Yes that’s it, characters with the emotional development of a carrot, are so concerned by climate change they would disregard modern cooling systems to the risk of their own unfortunate demise.

There was a moment where I thought the writers had come up with the genius idea of getting the two female leads to literally talk each other to death!

Instead their death is so painfully obvious and badly written I’m going to tell you what happens. They get hit by a truck. ..