“ . . . about as creative as the average stomach flu.”

The Storyline

A teen’s premonition of a deadly car crash helps save the lives of his friends—except—death sets out to collect those who missed the escalator to their final destination.   Dun, dun, da-dunnnn….   *insert load power heave here.

First, before you race out to see this humdinger, watch the original(s); they’ve been running it/them for the past two/three weekends on many of the networks. It was shot in the late 90s and finally made it out of the can in 2000; since there’s been two others to crawl out of Canada. The original was made when the Gods were highlighting Seann William Scott after his first major success (American Pie, Stifler character – he’s been in a thousand films since, but on imdb.com they actually credit him playing himself in Pie!!! – too funny!)  After you watch the first one, you can better judge this remake. The story and characters are different . . . but not by much.

The Cast and Crew

Lindsey Hayes Kroeger and David Rapaport deserve open-ended, black-card credit for their casting on this one. Bobby Campo, Shantel VanSanten, Nick Zano, Haley Webb, Mykelti Williamson, Krista Allen, Andrew Fiscella and Justin Welborn—just to name a few—pulled off one hell of a performance. What I like about this cast is the energy everyone brought, but when you’re in your young 20s and you don’t bring it—go home. You suck and must die! But first we’ll harvest your organs, defile your corpse, then send you to District 9, so the talking shrimp have something to eat. A prawn can only eat so much f’ng purina, ya know?

Hats off to David Ellis, Director, for having a blockbuster on his hands. Pull this guy up and you’ll find he’s been a stunt coordinator for most of his career. This looks to be his debut on the ol’ director’s chair –well done, David!  Eric Bress (WGA Writer, Kyle XY) and Jeffery Reddick (WGA, Final Destination 2&3 – out of Canada) scribed out a real thriller here. Wasn’t too impressed with the dialogue, but this flick was aimed to make big money from horror seekers not dazzle them with brilliant subtlety. With the first three raking in close to half a billion, I don’t see this pup falling short.

Brian Tyler (Fast & Furious) composed the music. *He’s a big dog in the film world as a composer. At first when I was looking at the budget (est. $40M), I couldn’t figure out where all the money went. You can have a huge CG (computer graphics) tab; huge cast tab (but these guys are pretty cheap) and stunts, etc., but where you spend your money is with who you choose to manage the various departments or compose original music. Another clue is see who is listed within the first seven – ten credits on IMDB – Brian is right there, and he’s worth every penny. In a great sound environment, your ears will ring like your first Motley Crue concert, OH SHUTUP, District 9 people! Everyone knows about your secret stash of Crue posters you have stashed in the garage under all that crap your mom – notice I didn’t say wife – wants you to toss!

Cinematographer, Glen MacPherson (Rambo and a gazillion other films he shot) needs to be mentioned; beautiful shots, Glen. The entire piece was easy on the eyes.  Also, Scott Plauche, Art Director (Ray) set the scenery up for great shots to be captured – way to prep bro!

The Good, Bad and Indifferent

Just for the record, I did NOT like this movie. First, go get some original material. Is Wollywood truly out of ideas!? Have the balls been removed from everyone in Tinseltown?!! Man… If so, here’s to defib’ing Wollywood’s ol’ heart. A film critic, we’ll name him “ck” for good measure, grabs his hand scribbled notebooks, tosses ‘em into his trusty ’82 civic and roars out to the land of opportunity and an occasional drive-by shooting – Los Angles. Hey, the scored pot sucked, so I had to do something; when in Rome do as the…whatever, right? Anyhoo, when he arrives he waltzes right through the front doors of WB, hitches a ride up to the top floor and to the first suit he finds he pitches this gem, “Think District 9 meets Fast and the Furious!  The shrimp dudes are stuck here! Like really, stuck here – on Earth.” *Suits are so stupid they usually don’t even know what planet they live on, so it helps to remind them (visuals work nicely too – you are here, dumbass).  “The one dude that got away started a new colony and completely forgot about everyone back here. fuck ’em, right? Anyhoo, Nascar has been sitting in the number one spot now for nine years, so we’re going that angle.

The shrimps are taking over everything – even NASCAR—oh, HELL NO, belts Will Ferrell in the trailer we’ll shoot—already have the financing from Taco Bell for it too. They’re fly’n around all the big tracks, Brick Yard 400, Indy 500, even Bob’s put-put and go-cart frenzy, grabbing the checkered flags! They’ve won the hearts of many Americans now. One is dating a movie star. Another is riding on the special float in a gay pride parade. The last is dating a muppet! Yes. Miss piggy. After all, she was dating a frog. Kermit finally got nailed trying to cross the road—poor soul… ”

BUT ENOUGH IS ENOUGH bellows Tom Cruise; have him looking at the script as we speak, seems very interested. “Now, Bobby-Boo (Cruise) will jump back in the saddle to race against the shrimps! But along the way falls in love with their lead driver!!! Miss. Sexy Shrimp (haven’t worked out a name yet, but Katie is favorable). Will he be able to keep focused and take back all the championships one by one or run off to have little sea monkeys…? Real nail bitter if you ask me!”  The execs will say, too edgy, we need to appeal to the kids – but I like the cut of your jib son!

Back to Reality—The Final Destination was well made. Its story is weak, but action and thrilling scenes keep your attention all the way through. The music plants your ass back in the sweat stained seat from the previous ass of Johnny no-socks fresh from a Walmart buffet, and the graphics make you wanna keep your eyes shut. All good. But the “shocker scenes” have already been done in many, many other films, so this film lacks originality in every sense – even comparing to their own franchise.

The Bottom Line

If you’re jonez’n for a thriller/horror you can’t go wrong. But if you’re looking for something original you’ll be disappointed.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 31st, 2009 at 11:28 pm and is filed under 2.5, Film Reviews, ck. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.