There’s no denying that it’s ridiculous on the face of it. You can’t very well have a third final destination, given certain definitions of the word final. But? Not caring, me. Halloween II was the day after Halloween, and few if any of the Friday the 13th movies will be heard to even mention the date. That’s just the way sequels work. And as this is a valid sequel to Final Destination, I’m satisfied.

Now, was it a good sequel? This relies on two postulates. One: that the original was good, and it was. Not only can anyone die at any time, but that’s actually the premise of the movie. You can’t adhere to the rules much more closely than that. And two: that this movie be exactly the same as the original good movie. This is a mistake that occurs all too often in horror. If the film was good, why confuse people by making the sequel be some different, unrecognizable movie? (In stark contrast to the rest of Hollywood, where we call making the exact same movie twice in a row by a more derogatory term than sequel, that being remake.) But it’s still not as good as Final Destination 2, the best possible kind of sequel to a horror movie: a continuation of the original.

The plot is simple enough. A person has a vision of impending doom, then sees the world start to conform to that vision, and so escapes the doom, accidentally or purposefully including a small group of people in that escape. Death’s plan now being out of whack, the seemingly lucky people start to die in grotesque and inexplicable ways soon thereafter to right the balance. (This is clearly not the friendly, compassionately goth Death envisioned by Neil Gaiman.) On the bright side, the world offers up clues to avoid these deaths, if only they can be perceived and acted upon. Thusly, in any given sequel the audience receives a reasonably spectacular catastrophe, followed by a series of grisly deaths that would fit right into the opening segment of a Six Feet Under episode. Except for naked chicks, that’s all I’ve ever asked of the genre. And this has those too.

Usually when I see a movie on opening day, it’s a sci-fi / fantasy thing, or a comic-y thing, or at least a horror thing. Very, very rarely is it a comedy or a chick flick, rarely enough that I can’t think of any to name. And yet, there I was yesterday, sitting down to a showing of Date Movie. Which, y’know… the act of being a parody movie tends to elevate above the lowest common denominator level filled by your Kangaroo Jacks and your White Chicks and your Big Momma’s House 2s. So there’s that?

Seriously, when it was on, it was pretty funny. I especially dug the Mr. and Mrs. Smith bits, although I’m sure that’s based in part on how much I dug the real thing. And it’s fair to say that there were a lot of pieces, like the Big Fat Greek Wedding allusions, that I maybe didn’t find funny because I’m not as versed in the date movie genre as I am in some other ones. Or that my continuously evolving tastes have made me enjoy this kind of thing less. But I think it’s more likely that I know plenty enough, and the parody flick just isn’t nearly as good as it used to be. And that if I stuck Top Secret! in the DVD player, I’d be laughing for the whole thing all over again.

On the bright side, Alyson Hannigan is every bit as palatable to watch as she ever has been, plus she’s still pretty funny in her own right. On the not as bright side, boy can she not sing. I mean, a lot. But I love her anyway, so that’s okay.

I know, I know. Not one but two horror movies out as of this past weekend, and yet somehow what I’ve seen lately is Firewall. Well, to that I have two things to say. 1) I bet I see one of them within the next night or two. In fact, there’s something obscurely pleasing about going to see something tomorrow night particularly, as a single girl in a horror movie on Valentine’s Day might be just the thing I’m looking for. 2) Harrison Ford does have a certain cachet that outweighs considerations of how similar his recent movies have been to each other.

This latest is a by the numbers thriller, even to the extent that its misleads come at predictable intervals. Mr. Ford plays a bank internet security expert who even knows how to set up a proper Cisco access list to block potential Asian hackers, so you can tell he can handle all the other security considerations within the first moments of the film. The problem is, someone has decided this makes him the perfect inside man, and they’re willing to kidnap his entire family to convince him. Will they get away with it? Will someone have a conveniently leveraging peanut allergy? Will there be a climactic fist fight? I think you know.

It did, however, have one of the most hilarious fraught-with-portent lines in my recent memory. “So, what are you going to do?” “I’m going to find my dog!”

Okay, so I lied. I do kind of know why it took me so long to review the Matador. Part of the reason, at least. Shortly thereafter, I saw Eternal Sunshine, and it left me disquieted and unsure what to say or even whether to say anything, and that leaked into the other thoughts I had about the other movie, and then I was just stuck.

Kind of like I am again now, as it happens. Good movie, though. Very good use of camerawork to demonstrate the workings of how people think and remember. Good use of the taking the story out of order to frame important events properly device, and that’s not light praise from me, because a lot of people have been doing that in TV and movies alike lately, and it’s most often just a way to get a cheap thrill out of the opening moments of the show rather than a thoughtful look at the entire story. Excellent acting, of course, and also Kate Winslet is everything that I want her to be, as in the majority of her work. (That is, pleasant to the eyes, ears, and mind. Yumtastic, even.)

See how I didn’t really say anything about the movie there? Yeah, I’m trying to keep the plot quiet, because it ought to be seen with a clean slate. But that’s not really it at all. It’s that I feel like with only very minor changes in the facts and in available technology, it could have been lifted right out of my life. It’s not just that it’s difficult to talk about things that are very personal (though it is), it’s that it’s harder yet to have someone else who I’ve never met before do it for me. Like I said, disquieting is what it is. I’ve lived that life, and learned those lessons, and if I’m lucky, someday I’ll find someone else who is the right person for me like that but has also learned those lessons, because I don’t think I can only apply them from my side and have it do any good. So, anyway, being that personal, did I like it? I did. A lot. But I don’t think I’ll be watching it again anytime soon.

Also, referring to an earlier point in the review that I intend not to specify: see what I did there? Ha! I kill me.

Sometime over the weekend, I saw The Matador. I doubt I would’ve gotten around to it, only it fit the day’s schedule better than my horror-remake preference or my mom’s generic military coming-of-age preference. Which is almost certainly lucky for one of us, and that one of us is probably me, so I’ll take it. Why, then, have I not reviewed it yet? That was days and days ago. I don’t have a good answer. My head has not been in the right place for typing, perhaps. Nonetheless, I’m here now, and here I go.

So, yeah, Pierce Brosnan as a contract killer is not a stretch, perhaps, but this ain’t no James Bond flick. Bond was never an alcoholic, for one thing, neither did he ever have moments of doubt or a penchant for pedophilia. At least, we’re led to believe he had none of those things, but considering one of the things Bond and Julian Noble do have in common, I’m not so sure we can really take any of this to the bank. That is, they’re both sociopaths.

I know what you’re thinking, but it’s all there. Bond has no regard for others, no sense of remorse over his actions, is a consummate liar and indulges in constant illegal activity. It’s just that’s he’s in one of the few jobs where all of this is sanctioned, and it’s worked out very well for him. But I’m not here to talk about Bond, just to make the comparison. My sense is that whereas Bond is filmed through a flattering lens that hides all of these flaws in favor of what he achieves for his country, Noble is shown in a more honest light. Of course, being a paid assassin is automatically less acceptable than being a spy, but the ways he acts toward other people are much less polished as well. And yet, in true sociopathic form, he’s still thoroughly likable, witty, and outright fun to be around, able to win people over at the drop of a hat and keep them won despite being caught in insulting lies. I know I was rooting for him, even while diagnosing in my head everything that made him not just a bad person but an outright sick one.

So: funny movie, good characters, reasonable enough storyline. I should say that I don’t think I ever quite bought into the matador comparison that was the movie’s central conceit. …and it’s pleasant I did say so, because it’s just clicked for me. The whole point of claiming that the matador’s profession is noble, making a better death for the bull than a hammer blow to the head, is that this claim is completely untrue. It’s just something we say to make ourselves feel better about being entertained. Or about being the entertainer, in this case.