Final Destination 3 (2006): C-

From its conception of the Grim Reaper as an ominous cold breeze that slays kids with elaborate Rube Goldberg traps to its profusion of turgid teen horror stereotypes, Glen Morgan and James Wong’s Final Destination series has always been a lethally leaden joke. Having handed the second installment’s reigns to David R. Ellis – who at least generated some decent thrills from an opening car crash sequence – Morgan and Wong are back behind the camera for Final Destination 3, offering up a new batch of kids who, after narrowly avoiding a runaway rollercoaster ride thanks to Wendy’s (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) premonition, find themselves stalked by those deadly gusts of wind. Delivering fatalities by way of the board game Mouse Trap, the vapid, pointless and wholly predictable film is about as scary as a glass of water, shallowly (and offensively) turning death into a spectator sport in which we’re asked to root for the demise of its distraught protagonists – a request that would be more objectionable if said characters weren’t so insanely insufferable. Despite its empty-headedness, Final Destination 3 has been hailed in some critical quarters as a canny reflection of our post-9/11 times, presumably because Wong and Morgan have the gall to shamelessly employ a photo of the World Trade Centers in order to amplify their story’s sense of inevitable tragedy. Don’t drink the Kool-Aid.