Movies Reviews

Final Destination 5 – Movie Review

By Anne Brodie Aug 12, 2011, 13:29 GMT

Death is just as omnipresent as ever and is unleashed after one man\'s premonition saves a group of co-workers from a terrifying suspension bridge collapse. But this group of unsuspecting souls was never supposed to survive, and, in a terrifying race against time, the ill-fated group frantically tries to discover a way to escape Death\'s sinister agenda. ...more

The long-running Final Destination franchise was supposed to dock it with the last installment. 

The original film was released in 2000, and captured the popular imagination with its horrific imagining of an airplane disaster and the fate of young protagonists we came to care for. 

It was witty, slick, unique and fun.  

Final Destinations since have run the gamut of A-Z in success and ratings and the series was allowed to die a quiet death with the cleverly titled “The” Final Destination in 2009.

But as the best horror stories go, the former behemoth has risen from the ashes to put the fear of aviation and retribution into us once again.  There is a plane incident Final Destination 5 and they hold it well into the third act.

But between opening titles and plane sequence there is plenty of mayhem, weird accidents and unhinged lunacy.  Once again there is a deadly price to be paid and one by one the characters pay despite their best efforts not to.   It’s ba-a-a-ack!

I will treat Final Destination 5 as a standalone, which is all I can do as the original is a memory lost in the mists of time and I never saw the others, maybe snippets on airplanes.  So it’s a fresh slate. 

Particularly striking is the film’s inventive ways of killing off difficult people, due to faulty A/C units, screws that come loose, errant drops of water, a runaway hook, a slightly too powerful stone saw and what-have-you really entertaining and visceral. 

Who knew such infinitesimal events like going in for laser eye surgery and the doctor has to get the rest of your file, could trigger chain reaction that would lead to horrific, gruesome and unthinkable death?   Or having an acupuncture session? 

It’s childishly simple and effective, and straight ahead fun.  It has a kind of thoughtless generic appeal that will find favor in all kinds of audiences, even folks who say they don’t like splatter.  The energy, nervous laughter and payoff is pretty solid.  

Plot wise, it’s not new.  A spooky kid foresees a coming tragedy and tries to get his friends out of its path.  Sam is on a bus enroute to a team building retreat with his co-workers and the girl who just dumped him. 

He dreams the huge span bridge they’re on collapses when construction crews and high winds unwittingly pool their resources.  He watches in horror as his friends die in awful, unimaginable situations. 

Then he wakes up on the bus and realizes it’s actually going to happen just as he dreamed it.  Eight of his friends escape.  Before long, one of them dies then two and then three. 

A mystery man from the coroner’s office tells the survivors they owe him, that death doesn’t like to be cheated.  The only way to survive is to offer another life.  And so it hits the fan.

This is not a film to ponder and marvel, it won’t stand up to close observation and dissection.  It is pure and simple episodic fun, the kind that makes you hoot and holler in the darkness of the theatre, and the 3D really works well (finally).  

Its summer and this is pure popcorn.

Visit the movie database for more information.

35mm horror
Written by Eric Heisserer Jeffrey Reddick (characters)
Directed by Steve Quale
Opens: Aug 12
Runtime: 95 minutes
MPAA:
Country: US
Language: English