DESTINATION FINAL 2

And it did finally come to pass: The Final Destination 3D.

Before getting the chance to see it however, I noticed a review of it in Friday's Daily Mail, which I feverishly read, not in the expectation that such a tabloid paper would 'get it', but in the nervous hope that the producers hadn't blown it by getting big-name real actors on board, a decent script, and a compelling narrative.

The way I see it, anyone whingeing about the FD franchise's deficiencies in these departments completely misses the point; in fact, for the purposes of this unique format, these paucities are compulsory: to avoid upstaging the film's works of art, the consistently brilliant collections of ingeniously gruesome setpiece kill-scenes.

So a huge relief. No sooner had reviewer Chris Tookey j0ked about the one-dimensionality of the characters in a three-dimensional movie, nor had labelled it 'ugly, repetitive, and sadistic... with lots of meaningless sex, and death in spectacularly gruesome ways', nor had given it a paltry single star, than I knew we were on to another winner in the series.

And this was proven to be correct on last night's maiden viewing. It admirably delivers in all the ways you desire; plus there are no good 'performances' nor snappy dialogues to get in the way of the trademark breathtakingly elaborate kills and exquisitely gory thrills. The 3D effects, although often CGI produced, are also an excellent novelty that really adds to the sense of visceral fulfilment.

As a genre, Final Destination occupies its own glorious inimitable domain, one that relies entirely on the endeavour of pure artistic creativity, that most difficult ingredient to imitate.

DESTINATION FINAL 1