David Ellis is back for The Final Destination which is the fourth and possibly the final in the series. Filmed in HD-3D the movie shows the real potential for bringing HD-3D technology as a case study for 3D cinema to become a stalwart format. Your not presented with the odd 3D effect with allot of the 3D movies that have been around, it’s specially filmed in mind to give a high octane thrill throughout the whole movie instead of relying on set pieces. As far as The Final Destination lives up to the other three in the series, it’s certainly a gore fest and thankfully the characters are more bearable than in FD2 and FD3.

The death set plays are enjoyable but like with all of the Final Destination movies the best the movie has to offer is always at the start, this time set on a race track where a series of unfortunate effects inflicts a death toll on a OTT scale that is both clever, full of gore-candy and amazing 3D effects to highlight the impact of the kill. For those new to the series, the film starts with a group of friends going to an Indy Car race where Nick who is the male lead has a premonition that a major accident was going to happen at the track, his premonition causes hysteria which then in turn causes several members of the public and his friends to leave the McKinley Speedway just in time before death takes hold.

The film’s plotline then evolves into death following the members who cheated fatality throughout the remainder of the film. Nick has a relationship with Lori Milligan who is played by Shantel VanSanten who plays a refreshing role that isn’t marred with the usual squeamish teen like character, this adds a nice set piece towards the end of the movie where (well watch the movie and find out) Other characters in the film include a security officer, mechanic and a racist Klu Klux Klan member of which are just a few of the more memorable characters in the film. Each death scene is calculated with a nice build up, though the premonitions of Nick later in the film do not show what happens, but instead have a symbolic reference that doesn’t give too much away.

In terms of how this movie holds up with the others it’s certainly not the worst. FD3 started extremely well but became weak after the initial rollercoaster scene. The Final Destination on the other hand has smatters of cringe inducing scenes, mixed with the odd macabre humour when characters that you don’t emphasise with die in humorous ways. The ending of the film was a little disappointing with no big finish at the end, though the HD-3D credits showing X-Ray styled deaths of the remaining characters was a nice touch.

The 3D version of the film has been executed with real polish, which had me with a permanent smile on my face. The flying objects have you jumping and sometimes flinching and visual effects such as embers of flames and the 3D perception of spikes all add to a thrill-ride to the full feature. How this film pans out in 2D though may well be slightly underwhelming as this tried and tested format fails to bring any surprises anymore. On the whole though, The Final Destination is well worth the ticket to see. The 3D version of the film is not a cheap afterthought it’s been executed extremely well and is evident that David Ellis has thought about this when filming for the movie itself.