This review is of the TV-14 edited version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

It’s time for a really bad film and trust me when I say it’s reallllllly bad. At the same time, I didn’t quite think it was a 0 so we have that going for the film. It’s probably the best thing I can say about it to be honest. Like there’s really nothing good about it but I didn’t feel like it was worthy of being at the very bottom of the bucket. Small mercies and all right? Still, if you’ve made it to Final Destination 3 then I imagine you’re probably at least a slight fan of the series so maybe you’ll appreciate this one more than I did.

The film starts off with a bunch of annoying teenagers enjoying a fair and messing around. They all tend to be unlikable jerks and the kind of cliques that you’d want to avoid. If you see them coming then you need to cross the street but it’s probably too late by that point. They decide to head on a roller coaster but Wendy gets the feeling that they’re all going to die so she makes a huge scene and gets off. This starts a chain reaction of other kids getting off and the ones who stay all get destroyed. Now Wendy is feeling some survivor’s guilt and most of the other kids aren’t even grateful that she saved them. It was all coincidence and all that. The problem is that death is mad about the way they survived this and has decided to bump them off one by one. Can they find a way to stop such an all powerful being or is this going to be yet another lesson in futility?

This is a problem with a lot of supernatural slashers which is that we all know the heroes have absolutely no chance. What are you going to do against an opponent who can’t die, can’t feel pain, etc. Death is also immortal so he has all day while the main characters will eventually slip up. Death has no true weaknesses or limitations in his abilities either so yeah this is going to be a long film for the characters. It would help if Death himself actually appeared to gloat or something but he’s treated more like a natural disaster. He also seems like a troll since you could make the case that he gave Wendy the vision in the first place. Sort of like he is bored and just needs a reason to keep on murdering.

Right off the bat the film isn’t helping itself either with all the demonic imagery. Yeah it makes sense to remind the characters how evil everything is but they could have at least pretended to have a little subtlety. Then we also have to make one of the characters a total creep which is annoying. He basically exists to annoy and pester the girls. Even the main guy who we’re supposed to be sympathetic for, decides to take an inappropriate photo of one of the girls in his first scene. The film goes out of its way to make the characters super unlikable.

It’s one of those tactics I understand because then you don’t feel as bad when they are bumped off, but this backfires almost every time I would say. After all you’re now following a bunch of characters who are all just pretty bad. Also not all of them are as bad as the others so some of them feel like they are paying a price that is way too drastic. For example there are two girls who are not very smart, they shown to be rather shallow and really unaware of what’s going on but that’s hardly enough for them to get a grisly murder. You can’t put them in the same category as the perv or the guy who is always ready to pick a fight.

At the end of the day, almost all of the characters are going to get bumped off regardless. I suppose life not being fair could be just another message but it’s not one that I’m a fan of. Then you also have Wendy figuring out the death rules but it doesn’t really make much sense. At least in the first two films you had the mysterious guy throwing in a bunch of lore and helping to confirm what’s true but here she picks up on all of it with the flimsiest reasonings possible. You have a very hard time believing that she actually pieced the puzzle together like that.

For starters, the roller coaster deaths seem hard to predict the order of compared to the airplane. It would have been way harder to keep track of them all. Then conveniently there are people covering the photos at times right up until the murder happens. Again, it feels like death is just trolling the whole time which means the main characters are even more doomed than usual. Mix in how over the top violent it is and that’s a recipe for disaster. What you end up wishing for by the end is at least a few normal deaths. A relatively quick/painless death instead of it always having to be super disturbing.

Maybe have one character cheat death several times with some cool athletics or something. You can afford to lighten up the tone just a little bit instead of the films always being so somber. Even the shock ending isn’t quite as shocking as it could have been. I will say that the subway seems like a fun backdrop though so I’d be cool with that being the main setting for one of these films. Perhaps it would get old quick but I think there is some potential there. Not that this franchise as a whole has much potential though. First thing you need to do is come up with some actual likable characters. Something that can be used as a foundation to push the film forward. Throw in a real plot and definitely give Death at least the illusion of a weakness. If you do that then perhaps we can actually have an adventure.

Overall, Final Destination 3 is definitely the weakest entry in the series. It’s really just an excuse to have a bunch of characters all murdered in very grisly ways. You could say that’s always been the point but at least there was some semblance of a story stringing it all together. I would say this film barely even bothers with the pretense. The characters just keep getting bumped off and at no point in the film are you actually having any fun. It’s just all way too grim dark the whole time for any of that. Definitely stay far away from this film and you will be glad you did. You won’t be missing anything of value here.

Overall 1/10