The Final Destination


The Final Destination is a 2009 American 3D supernatural horror film written by Eric Bress and directed by David R. Ellis. A standalone sequel to Final Destination 3, it is the fourth installment in the Final Destination film series, and stars Bobby Campo, Shantel VanSanten, and Mykelti Williamson.
Produced by New Line Cinema, the film was released on August 28, 2009 by Warner Bros. Pictures. It is the first film in the series to be shot in HD 3D, and is currently the highest-grossing Final Destination film, earning $186 million worldwide but also received the worst critical reception of the franchise. The fifth film in the series, Final Destination 5, was released in August 2011.

Plot

The film begins 8 years after the explosion of Flight 180, 7 years after the Route 23 pileup and 3 years after the Devil's Flight derailment by showing a montage of deaths from the first three films, in the format of X-ray skeletons.
College student Nick O'Bannon visits the McKinley Speedway with his girlfriend Lori Milligan and their friends Hunt Wynorski and Janet Cunningham. While watching the race, Nick has a premonition of a horrible car accident that sends debris into the stands, causing the stadium to collapse. When Nick panics, a fight breaks out and several people leave the stadium, including Lori, Hunt, Janet, security guard George Lanter, mechanic Andy Kewzer, his girlfriend Nadia Monroy, racist tow truck driver Carter Daniels, and Samantha Lane. As Nadia berates the group, a stray tire flies out of the stadium and decapitates her.
Several days after the accident, Carter tries to burn a cross on George's lawn for preventing him from saving his wife, but a chain reaction causes him to be dragged down the street on fire before his tow truck explodes. The next day, Samantha is leaving the beauty salon when a rock propelled by a lawn mower is shot through her eye, killing her. After reading about the events in the newspaper and the past disasters that parallel to the speedway's, Nick becomes convinced that Death is after them. Hunt and Janet don't believe them, but they manage to convince George to help. The group visits the mechanic shop to warn Andy, but he is killed when a CO2 tank launches him through a chain link fence. After receiving a premonition involving water, Nick tries to warn Hunt, who has gone to a country club pool. At the same time, George and Lori try to find Janet, who becomes trapped in a malfunctioning car wash, and they narrowly manage to save her. Hunt drops his lucky coin in the water after accidentally turning the pool's drain on. When he dives in, he is sucked down to the drain, where the increasing suction eventually sucks his organs through the drain pipe. Afterward, George admits that he tried to commit suicide several times, but all attempts have failed. Nick believes saving Janet must have ruined Death's plan and the group celebrates.
Four days later, Nick begins to see more omens and remembers asking cowboy Jonathan Groves to switch seats prior to the accident, meaning he is next. Nick and George track Jonathan down at a hospital, where he remained in traction recovering from the accident. They witness him being crushed by an overflowing bathtub that falls through the ceiling. As they leave, George is suddenly hit by a speeding ambulance and Nick realizes that Lori and Janet are still in danger. He tracks them down at a mall cinema and convinces Lori to leave, but Janet refuses and is fatally injured by flying debris when a chain reaction causes the screen to explode. A multitude of explosions race Nick and Lori through the mall until they are trapped on a malfunctioning escalator, Lori is dragged into the gears and killed. This turns out to be another premonition, but George is killed by the ambulance before Nick can warn him.
At the mall, Lori begins seeing omens as well. Having failed in his premonition, Nick runs back to the mall to stop the explosion before it occurs. He is pinned to a wall by a nail gun but manages to stop the fire before it spreads to several combustible barrels, saving everyone. Two weeks later, Nick notices a loose scaffold prop while heading into a café and warns a construction worker about it before going inside. While talking with Lori and Janet, he starts to see more omens and alludes to the theory that the chain of events since the speedway disaster were meant to lead them to where they needed to be for Death to strike. Just as he realizes this, the scaffold outside collapses, causing a truck to swerve and crash into the coffee shop. The scene then shifts to the x-ray skeletons format of the opening credits, which appears to show the truck killing all three of them. Janet is crushed under the tires, Lori is decapitated by the impact, and Nick is propelled into a wall, dislocating his jaw.

Cast

Development

After the success of Final Destination 3, which was initially planned to be in 3D, Eric Bress wrote a script, which impressed producer Craig Perry and Warner Bros. enough to green-light a fourth installment. James Wong was on board to direct, but because of scheduling conflicts with Dragonball Evolution, he decided to drop out. Consequently, the studio executives opted for David R. Ellis to return because of his work on Final Destination 2. He accepted because of the 3D. For the 3D, Perry said that he wanted it to add depth to the film instead of just "something pop out at the audience every four minutes."

Filming

Although shooting was to be done in Vancouver, which was where the previous three films were shot, David R. Ellis convinced the producers to shoot in New Orleans instead to bring business to the city, and because the budget was already large. The opening crash sequence at "McKinley Speedway" was filmed at Mobile International Speedway in Irvington, Alabama. Filming began in March 2008 and ended in late May in the same year. Reshoots were done in April 2009 at Universal Studios Florida.

Music

Soundtrack

The soundtrack album was released on August 25, 2009, three days before the film's theatrical release, under public record label JVC/Sony Music Australia. The album consists of 23 cues composed and mixed by Brian Tyler. He took over scoring the series after the untimely death of the composer for the first three films, Shirley Walker.
;Commercial songs from the film, but not on the soundtrack
The CD features the score, composed and conducted by Brian Tyler, and performed by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, which omits commercially released songs that were featured in the film.
;U.S. edition
  1. "The Final Destination" – 2:56
  2. "The Raceway" – 3:07
  3. "Memorial" – 2:46
  4. "Nailed" – 3:22
  5. "Nick's Google Theory" – 1:30
  6. "Revelations" – 2:28
  7. "Raceway Trespass" – 1:39
  8. "Stay Away from Water" – 2:38
  9. "Flame On" – 1:43
  10. "Moment of Joy" – 1:17
  11. "Signs and Signals" – 2:51
  12. "George Is Next" – 1:12
  13. "Car Washicide" – 3:05
  14. "Newspaper Clues" – 1:57
  15. "Premonition" – 1:50
  16. "The Salon" – 3:53
  17. "Questioning" – 1:04
  18. "Death of a Cowboy" – 2:08
  19. "Gearhead" – 1:56
  20. "Sushi for Everyone" – 2:53
  21. "The Movie Theater" – 3:03
  22. "You Can't Dodge Fate" – 1:28
  23. "The Final Destination Suite" – 13:29
The soundtrack attracted generally favorable reviews. Christian Clemmensen of Filmtracks.com gave the score 3 out of 5 stars and felt Tyler was "capable to further explore new stylistic territory while making substantial use of the structures and tone of Shirley Walker's music." His approach to the scores were called "intelligent", and provide "adequate if not strikingly overachieving recordings is testimony to his immense talents."
The reviewers were also impressed with the extension of the sound used by Walker in Final Destination 3. "It relates to an affection for Walker's contribution to the industry," said an unnamed critic.
A SoundNotes reviewer grades the film with an impressive score of 7.5/10, remarking "Brian Tyler slugs his way through the inadequacies of The Final Destination and produces a score with reasonable entertainment value and enough of an appeal to make it function well apart from the woeful film."

Release

The film was released in 3D as well as in conventional theaters on August 28, 2009. It was initially planned for an August 14 release. It was also the first 3D film to feature D-BOX motion feedback technology in select theaters.

Box office

According to USA Today and Newsday, The Final Destination debuted at the top of the North American box office, beating Rob Zombie's Halloween II, earning $28.3 million during its first weekend. It has also topped the box office in the UK. The film remained at #1 in North America for two weeks, making it the first, and only, film in the series to top the box office. On September 11, 2009, it gained just over a million dollars and dropped to No. 7. The film grossed $66.4 million domestically and $119.3 million in foreign sales, with a total of $186.2 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film in the franchise.

Home media

The Final Destination was initially scheduled for a DVD and Blu-ray Disc release on December 22, 2009. The film was pushed back to January 5, 2010 in the US. Both the DVD and Blu-ray Disc included two pairs of 3D glasses with each set and featured a 2D version on the disc, along with additional scenes. Only the Blu-ray Disc version included two alternate endings, a "making of" featurette about the deaths, storyboard visualization and a preview of A Nightmare on Elm Street. The Blu-ray Disc release, also a combo pack, includes a standard DVD of the film.
In Target stores, some of the DVDs included an exclusive Final Destination comic book.

Reception

The film received generally negative reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 29% of 98 critics gave the film a positive review, with a rating average of 4.23/10. The site's consensus states: "With little of the ingenuity of previous installments, The Final Destination is predictable, disposable horror fare." Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 0–100 reviews from film critics, has a rating score of 30 based on 14 reviews.