Well, you start by avoiding backstory, follow up with as many cliches as you can possibly fit into one script, then wrap things up with cringe-worthy delivery from 90% of the cast.
Hey, did I mention that The Final Wish was brought to you by the same people who did The Final Destination?
Yup.
I loved every single one of the Destination films. The Final Wish? Not even close. The worst of the Destination films was a hundred times better than this halfhearted attempt to capitalize on the be-careful-what-you-wish-for trope.
Here's what we know about the lead, Aaron (Michael Welch), when the movie starts:
1. He's a bad lawyer. Because... well, if the failed interview he attends is anything to go by, for no other reason than he didn't attend an Ivy League school. Yeah... okay... except not every employed lawyer comes from one of the nation's best schools.
So... why is Aaron a bad lawyer? We don't know. We never see him in the courtroom. We don't even see him in the coffee shop he supposedly works at. See, this is why backstory is important, folks.
2. He's "ugly." Or is he? If Aaron is supposed to be "ugly," they should have tried harder. Giving him a cleft palate scar and calling that ugly succeeds only in being offensive, while failing to make him unattractive in any way.
3. He left home for reasons unknown. Don't get me wrong, y'all, I get it. Small town life sucks. I ran 4,000 miles away from mine so I can't exactly fault anyone who wants to do the same. On the other hand, I could list at least twenty reasons right now for why I left. Want to know how many reasons The Final Wish gives us for Aaron's departure?
...
Nope. Nada. Viewers have no idea what Aaron's hometown is like or why he leaves. Boy, are his parents (and everyone he used to know, apparently) peeved about it! Why? Oh, who the fuck knows? Isn't it enough to know that everyone is mad at him and his mother has inconsistent feelings about his leaving home? No? Oh, shit...
I'm usually a massive fan of Lin Shaye (Aaron's mother, Kate) but I have no idea what this performance was supposed to be. She blows hot and cold through the whole movie without any explanation, wanting Aaron to leave one moment, then stay longer the next. her character is just hateful. The scenes in which she goes full-blown crazy are deeply unsettling, though, thanks to straight-on camera angles. That's about the best I can say for her performance in this film.
I hesitate to even mention Melissa Bolona's performance as Aaron's former girlfriend, Lisa... Tell you what, imagine a love-child between Keanu Reeves's Jonathan Harker and Kristen Stewart's Bella Swan and you know everything you need to know about Bolona's performance.
Acting aside, there are so many unanswered questions about Bolona's character. For instance, why does she have such a close relationship with Aaron's family if their breakup was so horrible? (Hey, why did they break up?) Lisa feels less like a person and more like a prop. She's put here to cause conflict, there to suggest romance, and there for the in-no-way-climactic climax.
Her character isn't alone in this. The actors in The Final Wish only exist when they're needed. In fact, everything in the movie has been clumsily put there to fill an existing purpose. We need to get this creepy old urn into the story... how do we do that? Boom, his dad's an antique dealer. We need someone to die... Boom, neighbour guy is standing in their yard in the middle of the night for no damned reason. Cue freak storm.
The Final Wish is subtle as a sledge hammer which, in itself, is bad enough - but it's inconsistent at the same time. Aaron's mom is supposedly going through tough times. Obviously, I mean... just look at the shocking state of that farmhouse! Except, well, yeah it is like a mansion on the inside and totally immaculate but I'm sure the viewers will be too dumb to notice that, right?
(And if anyone can tell me why the djinn's first victim is in the most run-down mental facility since Victorian England, please let me know.)
I'm still trying to figure out how a movie made by the creators of The Final Destination could be filled wish such forced, unimaginative deaths - but that's not even what pissed me off about the ending. Yeah, The Final Wish feels much longer than its 95 minutes. It's both tired and tiresome. That sucks. But what really ruins the movie for me is the way it fucks with its own rules.
If you give characters in a horror movie a set of rules, you'd damned well better stick to them yourself. You can't just go "Oh, the djinn wins anyway because it looks cool." Fuck you for even trying that shit.
Oh, and by the way... the wishing-it-hadn't-happened thing worked so much better in Wishmaster.
