Final Destination 3 Review Country : USA Year: 2006 Genre: Supernatural / Horror Format: Cinema Running Time: 115 mins Distributor: New Line Cinema Tragedy at a carnival turns into preternatural terror for a new group of fresh-faced teens who must deal with Death itself.... Credits Directed by James Wong. Written by Glen Morgan and James Wong. Starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ryan Merriman, Kris Lemche, Sam Easton and Amanda Crew. With a fiendish ferocity that frequently compensates for short-change on storytelling, director James Wong's return to the Final Destination franchise is literally a runaway rollercoaster of chills and thrills. While essentially a remake of the first film, this third dance with Death is nonetheless an entertaining, if largely unoriginal, romp. With no returning characters from the preceding installments, Final Destination 3 opens with an impressive credits sequence at an amusement park, with onscreen text displayed in old-timey Vaudevillian fonts. We shortly get to know our new group of teenaged death fodder, who are soon to graduate high school. Wendy (an effective Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is the obvious lead character, a somewhat control freak who impulsively takes digital photos for possible inclusion in the school yearbook. Her boyfriend Jason (Jesse Moss) is a mildly narcissistic type, while classmate Carrie (Gina Holden) and her boyfriend Kevin (Ryan Merriman) bring up the rear as they await their turn to ride a fast and scary rollercoaster. By now we know the drill, especially if we've seen the trailer. Wendy has a premonition that the rollercoaster will derail and dash several riders to their deaths. Her tantrum causes her and a handful of other teens (Kevin included) to be evicted from the ride, while Jason and Carrie remain on and are promptly killed when the premonition proves true moments later. Now Wendy and the would-be passengers have ticked off Death for not meeting their appointed dying time, and they begin dropping off not in bizarre accidents not long after the rollercoaster accident. The Alex Browning/Clear Rivers snafu's from the first two films are referenced when Kevin pulls up a website which details the events and the whole "Death as an entity" urban legend. In pretty much a repeat of what we've seen before, he and Wendy resolve to gather the would-be rollercoaster victims and warn them, as well as attempt to outwit Death. There are some spectacularly gonzo death setpieces, particularly one involving an obnoxious self-absorbed wannabe pussy-magnet (Sam Easton) who actually graduated two years prior but hangs around high schoolers for the obvious reason. And in keeping with the first two films' almost fetish-like fascination with burning flesh, one sequence showcases a pair of shapely lasses sizzling away in tanning beds gone amok, slyly underscored with the Ohio Players' "Love Rollercoaster." The one new element Wong's and Glen Morgan's script proposes is a series of apparent clues within the snapshots Wendy had taken at the amusement park. These clues seem to indicate the manner in which each survivor will be finished off later, and it's an idea clearly lifted from The Omen. Indeed, the film loses considerable steam in the by-the-number third act, which takes place at a Revolutionary War reenactment complete with all kinds of fireworks that could possibly go badly. At least the obligatory "it's not over yet" denouement ends on a deliciously vague note, contrasting with the bellicose, in-your-face finales we've become used to. Weaknesses aside, Final Destination 3 is worth a look in spite of itself. And even though Tony Todd does not reprise his role as ominous mortician Bludworth, he does figure in a clever voice-over cameo at the doomed rollercoaster. Moreover, who would have thought the Lettermen's saccharine hit single "Turn Around, Look At Me" could be rendered creepy? OFFICIAL SITE DISCUSS ON OUR FORUMS Review by Petch Lucas, for Pitofhorror.com