Final Destination 3 was released in 2006. The film doesn't have any characters from the previous films returning, but Flight 180 and Kimberly Corman along with Thomas Burke are mentioned in an alternate ending. Also Tony Todd, who played the mortician in the first two films, returns as the voice of the Devil's Flight devil and the subway conductor. In terms of reviews, this is considered the best reviewed movie in the series, scoring an average 41 on the Metacritic website, the second highest rating of any Final Destination movie so far. The first is Final Destination 5.
Plot
Six years after the Flight 180 explosion, Wendy Christensen and her friends are at a amusement park, celebrating their graduation from high school. Her friends decide to ride a roller-coaster called Devil's Flight. Before boarding, Kevin Fischer and Jason Wise have a coin toss to see who is in the front and who is in the back. Kevin get the back with Wendy and Jason is at the front with Carrie Dreyer, Wendy is afraid to ride it until she is encouraged to by her boyfriend, Jason. Upon getting on the ride, Wendy has a premonition of the roller-coaster derailing and everyone onboard, including her, dies. Wendy wakes up then screams to get off. The attendants open the back cars, letting Wendy and her friend, Kevin off. A furious Lewis Romero starts a fight, forcing him and several others off the ride. The attendants then start the ride, just when Wendy realizes that Jason is in the front cars. Wendy desperately tries to stop the ride, but it is too late and Wendy's fears are confirmed as she sees the cars fly off the tracks.
One day later, a glum Wendy carries her books out of her school. Kevin tries to cheer her up, but she refuses to go to graduationKevin tells Wendy about the Flight 180 tragedy.. Two of the survivors, Ashley Freund and Ashlyn Halperin, also try to cheer her up by inviting her to a tanning salon. Wendy walks off to her car, but is stopped by Kevin, who then tells her about the events of Flight 180. As he tells her that this could be the same thing, she responds "Fuck you, Kevin" and drives off. When she gets home, Wendy looks over the photos she took with her camera on the night of the accident. Meanwhile, Ashley and Ashlyn attend to the tanning salon. Wendy then sees ominous things in the photos, just when Ashley and Ashlyn are killed when they are burned to death in their tanning beds. After the funeral, Wendy confesses that she now believes that Death, once again, has come back for the lucky ones of the roller-coaster. Wendy and Kevin learn that Frankie Cheeks is next since he sat behind Ashley and Ashlyn on Devil's Flight. As they pull into a fast food drive-through, a giant truck 100 yards behind tKevin and Wendy horrified when they see Frankie's dead body.
hem starts rolling down a hill and is heading straight for them. Wendy and Kevin escape from the car before the truck collides with Kevin's car, causing the motor to lunge forward to the car ahead and the fan belt slices a man's head in half. Wendy and Kevin look in horror to see a half-headed Frankie as the driver. Wendy and Kevin learn that the clues to the survivors' deaths are hidden in Wendy's photos of the night of the roller-coaster. Wendy and Kevin learn that Lewis is next and finds him at a weight room. Lewis refuses to believe that Death is after him for he claims that "Death fears him". While working with weights, two model swords cut the safety wire. Lewis is unaware of the severed safety wire and lifts the two weights without something holding them and the two weights fall and compress Lewis' head, spraying blood on Wendy and Kevin. Afterwards, Wendy realizes that Ian McKinley is next. Ian and his girlfriend, Erin Ulmer, are working at a hardware store and Wendy and Kevin arrive to warn them. Ian and Erin scoff at the idea, just when Wendy figures out the clues to Ian's death and pushes Ian out of the way before he is impaled by plywood. After Ian is saved death moves on to Erin as she falls back into a nail gun, activating it and shooting nails through her head, killing her. Later, Kevin works as security at the 300th Anniversary McKinley Tri-Centennial Fair. Wendy, at her house, tries to look for clues to Kevin's death and her death. While searching through more photos, she is horrified to discover that her sister, Julie Christensen was on Devil's Flight and is next. Kevin finds her at the fair when a white horse becomes loose and the rope on its neck wraps around Julie's neck. The horse gallops, dragging her. Julie is nearly killed by a cannon's underside, but Kevin intervenes. Julie after she is saved from being impaled on a Harrow.
Wendy arrives at the scene and asks her who was sitting next to her on Devil's Flight. Wendy's question is answered when Julie's best friend, Perry Malinowski, is impaled by a flagpole launched by a rope from the horse. The people at the fair pIan, blaming Wendy about Erin's death.
anic and leave at the gruesome sight. Death then moves on to Kevin, but his death is intervened as Wendy pulls Kevin out of the firework's path, nearly burning his face. As the remaining crowd flees, Ian McKinley emerges. Wendy then realizes on the night of the roller-coaster, she was wearing a McKinley High School shirt, leading her to believe that Ian causes her death. Wendy tells Ian to stay away. However, Ian, believing that he is safe that Death skipped him, wants it to end on Wendy. Wendy then sees that the fireworks are actually going to kill her. She somehow figured out her clue and ducks under the fireworks which pass Ian and hit a giant cherry picker. Ian laughs as he is invincible. He shouts "I'm not gonna die! It's you, Wendy! YOU'RE DEAD!" As the words leave him, the cherry picker begins to lean. Ian looks up and the cherry picker falls on Ian, crushing him in half. As Ian dies, he flips off Wendy. Wendy about to be run over by a train in her last vision.
Five months later, Wendy is on a subway and begins to see signs of Death's malicious approach. Julie and Kevin then meet Wendy on the subway, making Wendy suffer another premonition of the subway crashing, killing everyone. Wendy then wakes up and tells Kevin about the doomed train. She and her friends try to escape but it's too late, the train is already in motion. Wendy's panicked face is shown through a window seconds before the screen goes black and the train derailment is heard. The events of the vision occur.
If the viewer chooses Tails, after the premonition Wendy snatches the coin while it's in midair and freaks out, not even getting on the coaster. Jason, Carrie and Kevin follow her out, then the coaster crashes. Some text comes up explaining what ultimately became of all of them (none dies) and then the movies ends.
Alternate Ending and Deaths
Alternate Ending
As seen on the "Choose Their Fate" feature on "Thrill-Ride Edition" of FD3, there was an alternate ending in which Ian is fully crushed by a cherry picker. Wendy, Kevin and Julie slowly get up and walk towards the camera. Julie tells Wendy that she didn't take any pictures. Wendy throws the camera and stomps it. She tells Julie that its broken and asks Kevin if everything is alright.
Kevin calmly confirms that everything is under control. Then, all three slowly proceed to safety, with Julie and Wendy carrying injured Kevin. As police sirens are heard in the distance, the view pans to the camera, which comes to life and snaps a final picture of Wendy, Julie, and Kevin, implying they will still die. It is presumed the photo would suggest their deaths on the subway.
Alternate Deaths
Ashley being electrocuted in her alternate death.
By choosing to have Ashlyn set the temperature in the tanning room to 76 degrees, an alternate scene is played where she gets out of the booth, but is knocked out by the board, which still traps Ashley inside her booth. Ashlyn frees her, but as she grabs her hand, Ashley falls through the bed and is electrocuted, transferring the current to Ashlyn, killing her as well. By having Wendy choose to honk the horn again at the drive-thru, an alternate scene is played where Frankie turns around and sees Wendy and Kevin. Kevin manages to pull Frankie to safety. In the next scene, he is being carted off in a stretcher, happily declaring he is going to sue for what happened and became rich. Later, when Kevin and Wendy leave the Police Station after the Department Store scene, Frankie is pulled out of a police Choose Ashley and Ashlyn's fate.
car for soliciting an undercover ofChoose Frankie's fate.
ficer. The option as to whether or not he was worth saving appears, and if yes is selected, a 10 minute clip of Frankie's exploits with his camera before, during and after the carnival is played, including how he got arrested. If no is selected, the film continues as normal.
If Wendy looks at Lewis' carnival picture again, an alternate scene plays where Kevin and Choose Lewis's fate.
Wendy are walking on the field, discussing how they are going to convince Lewis to believe them. Once inside, Lewis is already using the machine that kills him in the original cut. He yells out "Fisher! What the fuck are you doing here?!" and then his head is crushed just as it was in the original cut.
By choosing to have Ian fire a warning shot at the pigeons, the hardware store scene is slightly altered. Erin is still killed by the nail gun, but this time she loses h
er balance when the pigeons (who didn't leave because Ian didn't kill any of them) fly in her face and cause her to stumble backwards. The scene ends showing a pigeon pecking away at Ian in the photo Wendy took at the carnival.
If Ian is killed normally, the film continues. If Map is selected, an extra scene, where a newspaper blows off of a homeless man who was using it as a blanket, is inserted. It reveals that the survivors of Final Destination 2 were killed and the viewer is given the option to read the paper and get the details. Kimberly and Thomas were sucked into a faulty wood chipper owned by the farmer of the second film, after they tried to escape a runaway car that was owned by Evan Lewis from the prev
ious film. The death certificate was given by the doctor who was pregnant in the previous film and thought to be the key to surviving death's plan. They had met at the area by coincidence and according to the article, were haunted by the whole incident, with Kimberly dropping out of school and Thomas being sent down to desk duty. After the newspaper sequence, the film ends as normal, except that the train wreck ends the film, with the final shot being Wendy getting smashed by the oncoming train.
Posters
There is only one poster, which features the cast on a roller coaster, but the color change and the roller coaster reverse make 2 different versions. Both posters have a red and blue color. The original poster
The reversed version poster
Both posters feature 10 characters, From left to right, first row to last row, in the reversed version, the characters are: Wendy, Kevin, Ashlyn, Ashley, Ian, Erin, Frankie, Lewis, Jason and Carrie. The poster features the cast on a roller coaster with the track visible in the background. Similar to one of the posters from the first movie, Final Destination, the cast has half of their face as a skull. It should be noted that two passengers of the roller coaster who are chased by Death in the movie. Julie and Perry aren't featured in this poster since the poster is trying to hide the fact that they were on the roller coaster. Julie and Perry are replaced by Jason and Carrie on the poster, who were killed during the opening disaster. The movie's name "Final Destination 3" is at the bottom of the poster with all capital letters in the original version, but it's on the top of the cast in the reversed version. There is also a tagline above the movie name in the original version: "This ride will be the death of you", but there is no tagline in the reversed version. This poster is mainly dark blue with a little bit of white, except the cast is in their normal color. In the reversed version, the poster is mainly dark blue and somewhat dark red.
Trivia
Final Destination 3 has only 1 poster, the least of the series.
Since Frankie is pulled off of the coaster, many viewers are confused as to how the crash still took place, as Frankie dropping the camera seemed to trigger off the event. This is incorrect; the actual cause of the accident was the hydraulics rupturing after Lewis's harness is forced down (this took place before the premonition, so it still counts in "real life") the camera only causes the hydraulics to be damaged further, causing the ride to crash. While Kevin, Lewis and Ian are fighting after Wendy has her premonition, the hydraulics are still rupturing, so by the time the ride restarts, there was no need for Frankie's camera - the hydraulics were damaged enough by then.
The opening sequence is a foreshadow to a few of the deaths in the movie. The pinball-like game shows a picture of a woman with nails in her face (Erin), twin "electric sisters" (Ashley & Ashlyn), and daggers/swords (Lewis).
Notice how on the final subway they pass Booth street (a reference to John Wilkes Booth who killed Lincoln) and are supposed to get off at Oswald St (referencing Lee Harvey Oswald who assassinated Kennedy.)
In the scene where the truck reverses into the car at the drive-thru, it is a truck that advertises Hice Pale Ale. There is also a truck in Final Destination 2 that also has the same livery.
Director James Wong noted that two characters were composited into the script. Two boys sneak onto the coaster, while Wendy and Kevin sit behind them; the boys are then removed by a ride attendant, leaving an empty car between Wendy, Kevin, Julie, and Perry. This was done to give Wendy and Kevin a reason not to know who was sitting in front of them, and to give a sense of relief that two innocent lives were saved from the crash.
Kris Lemche(Ian) had to take forklift driving lessons for two days to learn how to drive one.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead(Wendy) had to have a stunt double for the scene where she drives away from Kevin.
The scene taking place in the tanning booth was a closed set. Only the camera operators were in the same room with Chelan Simmons and Crystal Lowe and black curtains were draped to keep onlookers out.
There is a sign at the entrance of the roller coaster that says "I'll see you soon" which is what Tony Todd's character says to Clear and Alex in Final Destination.
The ending was re-shot, reportedly because of unfavorable reactions at preview screenings. This also happened with the two previous films in the series.
Reception
Critical reviews
Final Destination 3 has received mixed reviews from critics. Rating site Rotten Tomatoes reports that the film holds a 45% approval rating, based on 122 reviews. The consensus is, "Final Destination 3 is more of the same: gory and pointless, with nowhere new to go." BBC film reviewer Stella Papamichael described the reference to the 9/11 attacks as tasteless and gave the film a rare 1 star out of 5, after awarding the first installment four stars and the second three. Most critics agreed that the film was "running out of ideas", that there was nothing new the series could offer, other than the theme of death. Positive reviews praised the death scenes, such as the tanning bed and nail gun deaths, describing them as "gruesome" and "painful". Most of the critics praised Winstead's performance, stating: "...the real tragedy is that promising young actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead must endure this torture." In terms of reviews, the movie is considered the best reviewed movie in the series, scoring an average 41 on the Metacritic website, the second highest rating of any Final Destination movie so far. The first is Final Destination 5 with 50%.
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