Tweet

It’s rare to come across a movie that has a great idea and awesome execution.  With The Final we get a great idea and some okay execution.  The film starts off with tons of promise, good acting, and gets its hooks in.  After about 30 minutes, the hooks rip out as the film stalls, but hey, it was a good shot.  The film follows a group of High School misfits who, having grown long tired of harassment at the hands of the popular kids, plot an elaborate death party to reap their revenge and teach a listen to those that have wronged them.

Kills

By the time the last few people mosey out of the party, eight kids have decided not to graduate.  Because they’re dead.  Well, that’s not true.  Only six of them are kids, two are adults who weren’t on the invitation list.

Ills

Mostly we see gunshots, followed by a bunch of stabbings, some with knives, some with needles.  There are two fingers cut off, a stab to the spine, a chemical burn, a bear trap, and some wounds from a pneumatic rod gun.  Not overly bloody, but the torture scenes are well executed.

Lust

Some of the girls are cute, but this party isn’t meant for your pants.

Learning

Don’t pick on the weirdo loner nerds because they will eventually team up to torture your ass.  Or, to put it shortly, don’t be a dick.

Review

As the film starts, the lesson the teacher is giving is a bit too much on the nose.  He talks about cosmic retribution and disfiguring enemies, timely!  The first thirty minutes is great.  You really feel sorry for the misfits, they seem pretty normal and likable.  The bullies are really bad dicks, effective and offensive.  You hate them.  You want them to suffer.  Then the film slows down and gets a bit theatric as the nerds put on a show for the cool kid jokes, whom they’ve lured to a party and drugged.

Very quickly the losers lose our sympathy.  Their humanity disappears and the popular kids actually make somewhat well reasoned cases.  The misfits turn against each other more readily then they turn against their enemies, which doesn’t quite make sense.  For all their pent up hatred, the misfits are slow to enact justice on the popular kids, but feel no emotion when they kill adults who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Sort of like the later Saw entries, the punishments given out seem to be harshest for minor offenses, while the truly bad people don’t suffer all that much.  The nicest girl, one who makes the right choices and wasn’t all that much of a bitch to begin with is tortured the most.

Technically speaking, there are some poor gunfire sound effects.  No power behind them.  The movie skips over a juicy part – one of the evil teen bitches has acid smeared all over her face, then we cut away and by the time we get back, she’s nowhere to be seen.  Later she’s seen on the ground, but we didn’t get to see the actual burning effect.

Like I mentioned, the film started off great but then slows and ultimately the misfits’s revenge is shitty and poorly executed.  I was ready and willing to give The Final high marks at the midway point, but it managed to work itself backwards to a lower grade.  The directing is good, some of the acting is great, the premise is awesome, but overall, the film falls flat.  Rental, maybe, buy it? Nah.