Release Date: August 12, 2011
Studio: New Line Cinema /Warner Bros
Genre: Suspense / Thriller / Horror
Rated: R    1 hr 32 mins

Final Destination 5

August 14, 2011

Reviewer: Rottenbucher

*Comments:

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It’s now obvious that The Final Destination didn’t live up to its title.  It was actually the fourth film in the series and the first to be 3D in an effort to keep things fresh.  Final Destination 5 brings back not only Tony Todd and numerals to the franchise, but much better death sequences than the previous two installments.

Several co-workers for a small company are gathering to attend a business retreat.  Sam (Nicholas D’Agosto, Dirty Girl) is trying to motivate the group with an impressive breakfast. But his co-worker and girlfriend Molly (Emma Bell, “The Walking Dead”) is unimpressed as his constant moonlighting as a chef has strained their professional and personal relationship. A few other young professionals, including the sexy rocker Oliva (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood, “The Bold and the Beautiful”) and middle manager Peter (Miles Fisher, Superhero Movie) accompany the group.

While waiting in construction traffic on a bridge, Sam has a premonition of chaos and carnage.  Sam quickly hurries his girlfriend off the parked bus and several others follow him just as the bridge does indeed collapse.  Shaken and traumatized, the surviving employees mourn the loss of those that didn’t exit the vehicle in time.  But Sam is quickly hounded by Agent Block (Courtney B. Vance, “Law and Order”) who thinks Sam has something to do with the collapse.  Soon the survivors start to die, one-by-one, in horrific and freak accidents. A familiar face at all of the tragedies warns them that they escaped Death on the bridge and it is coming for them.  The coroner (Tony Todd, Final Destination, Candyman) informs Sam he deals with Death daily and they need to find others to take their place if they want to survive.

If you have seen any of the previous installments, you know exactly where Final Destination 5 is going.  However, Final Destination 5 makes the most of what has now become a completely predictable plot.  First, the bridge catastrophe rivals all of the previous premonition sequences except for Final Destination 2’s highway carnage. Concrete, wires, vehicles, tools, blood and body parts are all tossed at the screen in both alarming and subtle ways.  And the film doesn’t focus on too many aspects to telegraph how these folks will die in the chaos making this installment’s death scenes far more intense and gory than the previous two films.  The point of these films is to watch the characters die in creative, graphic ways and both third and fourth films dreadfully dialed these in.  Final Destination 5 will satisfy the depraved in the audience and surprise those newcomers.

But where Final Destination 5 really soars outside of the top-shelf gore and display of creative demises is that director Steven Quale (previous Second Unit Director on Avatar) takes his first solo gig and makes the most out of a by-the-numbers tale by upping the ante and keeping things moving splendidly between the grotesque payoffs.  Young genre screenwriter Eric Hesser (A Nightmare on Elm Street remake) also displays a marked improvement in creativity and the nearly cameo return of Tony Todd’s character adds an element of horror and supernatural that were completely absent from third and fourth film.

With the 3D being way better than a gimmick, the gore memorable and the tension being exceptional, Final Destination 5 is the best in the franchise since the first film. And as an added bonus, right before the credits role, there is a nice montage of several of the death sequences from the previous films all splashing before your eyes.  But what really makes Final Destination 5 so rewarding for the fans of the franchise is that there is a subtle twist that not only truly makes Final Destination 5 much more than a strip-mined franchise cash-in, but shows some tender craftsmanship that rarely makes it into the horror/terror/gore genre.  Recommended.

CAST:

Nicholas D’Agosto:  Sam
Emma Bell:  Molly
Miles Fisher:  Peter
Jacqueline MacInnes Wood:  Oliva
Arlen Escarpeta:  Nathan
Courtney B. Vance:  Agent Block
Tony Todd:  Bludworth

DIRECTOR:

Steven Quale