In retrospect, The Final Destination 3-D really isn't a very good movie. In fact, its actually quite mediocre. Maybe a little bad, even. The thing is, I saw a screening of this film less than an hour after enduring Rob Zombie's Halloween 2, so I actually enjoyed myself more than I probably should have.

The fourth installment of this "death on a rampage" franchise started back in 2000 with the aptly titled Final Destination. This latest entry in the successful series is called The Final Destination (the "The" in the title really lends some weight, doesn't it?), and simply put; its more of the same. Only this time, the proceedings are in blood splattering 3-D.

The big intro piece this time around involves a tragedy at an auto racing event. Nick O' Bannon (James Franco doppelganger Bobby Campo) has a premonition of the tragedy seconds before it occurs, and is successful in talking his friends and a few other random individuals into leaving the track just before a massive collision. Shortly thereafter Nick begins having ghastly visions, and he quickly realizes that he and his friends weren't supposed to make it out of the race track alive. Now, it appears that Death is picking Nick and his friends off one by one, in the very same order they should have died at the race track.

The thing about The Final Destination is, that it know exactly what it is and it never once attempts to take itself seriously. The characters here are wooden and stock, and the dialogue they are forced to utter, is positively awful, but I'm convinced that all of this is intentional. The film makers are well aware that audiences come to see these films to watch people die in a myriad of wild, wacky, and grotesque ways, so that's what they opt to focus on.

For the first forty five minutes of this picture, I was actually having a pretty damn good time. It was preposterous and zany enough to keep me amused. The stuff with Mykelti Williamson's lonely, race track security guard in particular, was an absolute riot. The film's key set pieces aren't nearly as well executed as they were in the second picture (my favorite of the series), but some bits, including an insane car wash sequence, are somewhat creative.

Sadly, what's really missing here, are classic, old school gore effects. They've been substituted with digitally created blood splatter that just doesn't work the same magic. The 3-D gags are fun to a certain extent, but by the final half hour of the movie, I really started to get bored. Not a good thing especially considering this film clocks in at around eighty minutes.

The Final Destination is the least effective of the franchise. Again, it has its moments, but overall, it is unable to sustain the sort of loopy energy and creativity that made Part 2 the best of the lot.