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List Price: $12.98 | | Label: New Line Cinema
Salesrank: 19641
Released: July 25, 2006 |
| Our Price: $3.50 |
| Used Price: $1.09 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Fasten your seatbelts and brace yourself for the "2-Disc Thrill Ride Edition" of Final Destination 3! It's the DVD that takes you on a ride BEYOND terror where YOU control your limit of fear!!
DVD Features:
Alternate endings
Audio Commentary
DVD ROM Features
Documentaries
Featurette
Other
Description of Final Destination 3 (Full Screen 2-Disc Special Edition):
Giddily gruesome and perversely entertaining, Final Destination 3 proves, yet again, that horror franchises will thrive as long as teenagers keep finding spectacular ways to die. A stand-alone sequel to the first two Final Destination thrillers, this one begins when a group of seven high-school graduates luckily escape from a deadly roller-coaster disaster, only to discover that their own deaths have been only temporarily avoided. Cute brunette Wendy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) spots clues of impending doom in digital photos of her soon-to-be-expiring classmates, and an ill wind follows her everywhere, suggesting the presence of a supernatural force that makes her a catalyst for gory events, as each of her friends is dispatched in the order they were meant to die. Returning to give their brainchild a suspenseful, low-budget makeover, franchise creators and former X-Files writers James Wong and Glen Morgan cleverly play on our collective fears (the roller coaster sequence is genuinely terrifying) with a knowing nod to violent urban legends, which explains their inclusion of the '70s hit "Love Roller Coaster" on the soundtrack when two stuck-up girlfriends pay an ill-fated visit to a tanning parlor. And that's just for starters: With Wong as director, FD3 serves up its grisly deaths with tight pacing and humor, and the cathartic carnage is discreetly edited yet gory enough to satisfy hardcore horror buffs. When morbid mayhem is this much fun, it's a safe bet that another sequel is just around the corner. --Jeff Shannon
On the DVD
As befits a horror franchise heavily invested in the idea of "fate," the Final Destination 3 disc carries a "Choose Their Fate" option. In other words, you can watch the movie with occasional choices offered; click on one of two alternatives, and see that version play out. This won't give you the power to let one character live or die; it's more like deciding whether somebody honks her horn twice in a scene, calls heads or tails on a coin flip, or pushes the thermostat to 72 degrees or 76. Not exactly life-changing, but it's kind of fun.
The bonus disc includes a 90-minute "making of" feature called Kill Shot, which covers the production of the movie in exhausting detail (honest detail, too: filmmakers James Wong and Glen Morgan are funny and blunt about the business they're in, including a section on how the original ending was scrapped in favor of a bloodier finale). It's everything you'd want to know about this movie--but who needs to know this much? A 7-minute cartoon, "It's All Around You," is an amusing meditation on bad luck and laws of probability, while a 25-minute featurette called Dead Teenager Movie spins off from Roger Ebert's theory about the rigid formula of a certain kind of horror film (Ebert weighs in on the subject himself). A few experts opine on the traditions of teenagers dying in horror films; some of them don't seem to be aware that the formula pre-dated the first Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Audio commentaries, special effects sidebars, and trailers fill out this needlessly authoritative disc. --Robert Horton
Final Destination 3 (Full Screen 2-Disc Special Edition) Reviews:
Exactly as described 
2009-11-09 - Thanks for this DVD. This was much cheaper than I found in stores and was in great condition!
Cheesy Movie 
2009-10-16 - Final Destination 3 doesn't compare to part one. Part 3, seems really cheesy, by the actors expressions on their faces; and it doesn't seem as realistic as part one. The movie also seems reduntant with no creativity. The effects are great and that's about it.
OK movie
2009-10-05 - I had seen the first two so I couldnt wait to see Final Destination 3 but I didnt want to pay full retail price. The movie was ok. I expected more. I was wondering if they could top the opening crash of the 2nd movie with the roller coaster but as I said it just ok.
Death Gets All Up In Your Face 
2009-09-15 - At heart, all horror movies operate on the human response to mortality. Your average horror fan gets a thrill from the films because they are a sort of spice for life, they are the seasoning that makes the mundane parts of life all the more richer. Watch a bunch of people get sliced and diced by a monster or madman, and that adrenaline rush makes you feel as if, on some level, you yourself have cheated death. For awhile or more, it's nice to be alive.
The FINAL DESTINATION films utilize the same premise, but instead of creating a defeatable or relatable villain, it makes the very act of dying the villain. Watching the movies, it's very much like they decided that the force of Death, after a millenia of ending lives, has grown bored and has decided to put some spice into his job. In all of the movies, Death awards a young soul with a premonition of a huge catastrophe, and when that soul saves him/herself (along with a handful of others), Death gleefully sets up cat-and-mouse games with the survivors and watches as they scream and skitter. The question is never Will They Die? It is How Long Can They Hold Out?
Because everyone dies, sooner or later, and it's rarely at the hands of a zombie or a Leatherface. Car accidents are far more common. Fires. Mechanical failures. The FD films make Death a snarky, sadistic force without ever showing his face. Instead, Death operates basically through three cards -- wind, gravity, and passive human interference -- and with these three things, he orchestrates the deaths of dozens and dozens of characters. These films are filled with pointless scenes of people screaming that they're in control of their lives, scoffing at the idea that Death lurks everywhere. Then they die.
The real fun in these films lies in the complex machinations that Death sets in motion with the leak of a pipe or the flutter of a bird. If you're expecting interesting plots, complex characters, or realistic dialogue, prepare to be HEAVILY disappointed. In fact, these elements of the films get steadily more and more wooden and cartoonish, until by the fourth installment, they are laughably bad. The makers know that what you're really waiting for is to watch Death do his thing, investing everything from quarters to fishsticks with a sinister menace. To that end, I have provided here a summary of the only thing about each of these films that is worth watching: the death scenes.
Final Destination (New Line Platinum Series):
In the first film, Death's premonition is visited upon a young student on a plane. The ensuing plane accident (5/5) gave me nightmares for a week. When the student leaves the plane along with others, he then experiences more premonitions (most of them cheesy reflections in windows) indicating that Death is now hunting them down. Of all the movies, this one features the most personified version of Death. A dark mist accompanies each death, and you can even see Death pursuing some characters, especially in a tense bathroom scene (4/5). Some of the deaths feature complex sequences of domino-like chains (there is a catastrophic house fire (4/5) and a menacing electrical storm (4/5)). Others are less creative (the bus and train accidents are both unimaginative throwaways (2/5)). The final death (by sign) is a cheeky nod at the movie's premise (4/5). Notable in this film: Death has a soundtrack, which turns out to feature, over and over again, "Leaving on a Jet Plane."
Final Destination 2:
Death isn't so hung up on music this time around, but that's okay because he's a bit more creative. This film's opening highway accident is by far the best beginning out of any of these films (5/5), and when the storyline later ties the survivor's lives to the events of the first film, it's actually interestingly done. Not as interesting as the deaths, though. You've got a tongue-in-cheek apartment fire (4/5), a crushing visit to the dentist (4/5), and an unusually persistent elevator (3/5). In one case, the jaws of life have the opposite function (4/5), and in another case a flying fence executes a mortal ballet (5/5). There are also three explosive deaths that are a little cheap (2/5). The characters this time around all get premonitions (again, mostly just false reflections in windows), and they spend a lot of pointless time trying to cheat Death's plan (their ideas mostly centering around a "new life"). The final scene, just as in the first film, is an over-the-top nyuck-nyuck moment. "It's all in fun," Death seems to be saying.
Final Destination 3:
This time around it's a roller coaster catastrophe (4/5). The movie has a creative idea by putting the premonitions into poorly shot yearbook photos, and Death continues to get up in people's faces with ominous/ironic songs and smug little omens (before one death, characters at a drive-in watch as the word "control" disappears from the digital menu). The first "catch-up" death in a tanning salon is perhaps the best of the film (5/5), although there's a nicely intricate set-up later in the film that involves a nail-gun (5/5). A runaway truck and horse and a falling sign constitute some of the film's weaker executions (2/5, 3/5, and 2/5, respectively). Elsewhere in the film, the movie's token "I'm Gonna Live Forever!" character battles death in a weight room (4/5). The movie concludes with an intense subway scene that is kinda cool, but also sort of a rip off as far as endings go. (4/5)
The Final Destination [Theatrical Release]:
The opener here is the weakest of the franchise. It takes place at a racing track, and so all of the subtle connections and coincidences get lost in the sprawling chaos of the catastrophe (3/5). The premonitions this time around are ridiculously aggressive hallucinations, and they forecast some rather uncreative demises. One man is murdered by a tow truck in a way that almost makes sense (1/5). Another character bites it at a hair salon in a rather unsatisfying fashion (2/5). There's a clever little two-fer where two characters simultaneously battle watery deaths, although both are almost too cartoonish to be all that scary (4/5 - car wash; 3/5 - swimming pool). The movie's real saving grace (aside from the 3D, which does its job without much fuss) is it's final theater/mall debacle, which is witty, self-referential, and fairly intense (5/5). The close of the movie (and, ostensibly, the franchise) is an unceremonious vehicular accident that is only notable for the X-ray vision it is finally shot in.
good popcorn movie, special features top rate
2009-07-19 - Final Destination 3 is no question, the bloodies and goriest of all the Final Destination movies, but it's also one of the funnest.
Unlike the other 2 Final Destination films, this one has a surprise ending that ponders the question of who makes it out, if anybody at all.
FD3 revolves around Wendy, a senior in high school who has premonition about an accident that will kill everyone on a rollcoster on Senior Night.
She gets off the rollercoster and so do about 8 other people, including her sister.
what follows are clues that lead to the deaths of the group that got off, lots of surprises, and lots and lots of gore and blood. The death scenes are all original and very cool.
the movie itself is a very good Saturday Night popcorn movie, worth watching.
the special features are awesome. On the 2nd disk, you get an 11 part making of Final Destination 3 that includes audition tapes and tons of behind the scene sort of stuff, like how they shot the roller coster scenes, inside the Home Depot looking store, the cast molds for death shots, and how Mary Elizabeth Winstead is such a great actress and how challening it was to make such an emotional film. Those tears by the way, are real tears, she's that good of an actress.
there is also a short animated film worth watching, and a look back at the Teen Death movies, from Freddy Kruger to Jason.
overall, good popcorn movie, great special features, well worth your money.
