Summary (No Spoilers):
Widely considered to be the worst of the Final Destination franchise, The Final Destination is the fourth installment. Like all the other movies, one of the characters has a vision of death and lots of it (this time at a racing event). The rest is simply... fate.
In-Depth Review (Spoilers Ahead!):
The movie begins with an auto racing event at McKinley Speedway as a nod to Final Destination 3, introducing the cast of characters (Nick and his girlfriend Lori, along with their friends Hunt and Janet) with Nick being the one to receive the vision. It's a shame since he's the most boring character introduced at the start, as he reminds me of a really poor copy of the main character from the first Final Destination movie. The premonition shows a lot of fire and chaos killing tons of people with some gasoline and a car crash, along with some really specific details to be pointed out later when it actually happens ("That's a lot of tampons for one woman").
Nick kicks up a fuss over the vision he just had, and this leads to an altercation between him, his friend group, and some spectators (an Ed Sheeran look-a-like tow truck driver called Carter, tampon mom Samantha, and a mechanic named Andy along with his girlfriend Nadia), so they get pulled out by a security officer named George, who is a black man (and this is... sadly important to the narrative... sigh). Lo and behold, the vision comes true, but those who went outside were luckily saved... well, except for poor Nadia who gets the funniest CGI death ever. I laughed out loud at how cheesy it was.
The group gathers at the funeral for the many who died, and Carter turns out to be a racist prick to George, which sets up what happens later that night... because Carter decides to pull his tow truck up to poor George's house and commit a hate crime, as he pulls out an arsenal of weapons fit for a Saw trap from his truck. But in a stroke of bad luck, a string of events happens to start his tow truck moving without him as "Why Can't We Be Friends?" plays, the chain on the back of his truck catching Carter and taking him along for the ride as he bursts into flames. Poor George pops out to see the flaming remains of that racist prick.
The next day, Samantha heads into the local salon an hour late to try to get her hair done, not caring at all when she hears about what happened to Carter. There's a lot of fake-out moments including alternative hairdresser Dee Dee having some clear resentment being forced to work late, but it all ends with Samantha saying "I got my eye on you," followed by an anti-climatic rock to her eye from a nearby lawnmower in a stroke of bad fate. That... was super lame. But it was funny in a cheesy way.
Nick is convinced there is a pattern to the deaths based on the original crash, so he freaks out all his friends except Hunt who says, "We just lost a really hot MILF," and keeps joking around, upsetting Janet enough she leaves. Hunt leaves soon after because if he's gonna die, he wants to party. But this does offer Nick's current order: Andy, Hunt and Janet, George, Lori, Nick.
Nick, George, and Lori go to warn Andy, but don't get through to him even with George explaining his sad backstory. He goes splat against the fence and becomes mince meat. Ouch.
The next scenes pan back and forth between Hunt and Janet, who are at a pool party and getting into a car respectively. Nick manages to predict their death will involve water when he sees a Clear Rivers Water truck right next to them to remind us this is a franchise. Janet, stuck in the car wash at the time of Lori's call, almost dies with her head trapped inside of the malfunctioning sunroof, and is saved by George hitting her car so it pushes her out of danger. Hunt has no luck, and his butt gets sucked until his organs explode. Yeah, seriously. This is definitely where the movie starts picking up, but it feels a little too late.
George tries to kill himself all day since he's next, but he keeps failing which is kind of funny in a morbid way. The reason is that he isn't actually next. Nick forgot about the cowboy Jonathan, who was originally asked to move for Lori to see, but that didn't happen with them gone. To keep it quick and short, an overflowing bathtub fell through the ceiling and crushed that poor cowboy as he tried to crawl away while greatly injured. Ouch.
George and Nick leave the hospital while Lori and Janet foreshadow George's death at the mall as a little car hits her in the foot, which soon leads to George getting hit with a car, which is by far the most lame death for one of the few characters with any depth, so that does start to make this movie feel like more of a stumble to the finish line.
But forget about George because it's time for a flashback! The worst part about this movie is them putting the coolest scenes in a vision, as it focuses on Lori and Janet watching a 3D movie called Love Lays Dying, but Lori keeps seeing visions including a cup saying Coming Soon: Til Death Do Us Part. Nick arrives to try to save them but Janet won't budge, saying this is where she was meant to be. Right when the movie has an explosion, the whole movie theater catches on fire, killing Janet. Lori and Nick have to try to escape the raging escalator, and then Janet gets stuck in the escalator as it slowly eats her up, and then... it was just a vision, remember? Nick heads in and thwarts it all with the sprinkler system! That ruined everything the movie was building up to, like what the hell?
Two weeks later, the three survivors Nick, Lori, and Janet are back at Death by Caffeine, which is the first of many signs something is about to go wrong. Nick starts to pick up on it when he sees a brochure for Forest Lawn, then a magazine for Love Lays Dying, and finally Racing 7 on the TV. Nick realizes this was where they were meant to end up all along, and shortly after, a truck hits through the glass and smashes all their bones. A super funny ending to the worst movie in the Final Destination franchise.
I give this movie a 2.5/5 because there are some really great deaths and scenes, but everything is put in the worst order possible, and anytime this movie has a chance at success, it gets cruelly ripped away.
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