Now, that’s more like it!!
Final Destination 5 (2011)
Directed By: Steven Quale
The Prologue
OK, so The Final Destination kinda sucked. But for whatever reason, all of you (or maybe not actually YOU) went and watched it in droves so they made soo much money they just had to make another one. Thus we get Final Destination 5! And you know what? I’m happy we did, because 4 would have been an awful way to end this series. All that was lacking before (including Tony Todd) returns this time around as we somewhat go back to the roots of the series for a fresher take on things. What we have here is a fun, smart, and way more suspenseful Final Destination than we’ve had in a long time.
The Movie
In this fifth installment, Death is just as omnipresent as ever, and is unleashed after one man’s premonition saves a group of coworkers 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. Can they finally find a way to cheat death? Or will they find themselves in the same position as everyone else before them who has dealt with the same thing..dead.
I’m soo happy the people behind this movie decided to go back to a more darker rout for this film. Yeah, there’s a funny moment here and there, but it’s probably the darkest entry into Final Destination outside of the original. The disaster is a much better one than we last seen, and it’s one that even makes my skin crawl a bit because I don’t like riding over big ass bridges either. When disaster strikes here it’s heart pounding, nail biting, and gives you a sense of dread as you watch it. It has a much more real feel to it, which may be because something very similar to this has actually happened before. It’s scary stuff, which is great since we have a “scary” movie here we are watching. So it does that part of the job well.
It should also be noted that the CGI sees vast improvements here from our previous Final Destination films. I think some natural gore may have even been tossed in the mix, and if not then that just shows how much the CGI has improved. The deaths are probably at their most horrific here than they’ve been in the films before, and they come with loads of nail biting and drama that was greatly missing in the other films. They even introduce some new rules into the mix that help make it more interesting and exciting. So it’s not just a wash and repeat, it’s at least making attempts to change things up a bit, but not too much that it ruins the whole franchise’s idea of cheating death.
Perhaps the characters still aren’t that likeable, but at least they don’t stand out as being overly annoying. And the casting of such actors as David Koechner surely doesn’t hurt anything either. The film even wraps up with a very cool twist on the ending that is both easy to see coming if you pay close attention, and a lot more rewarding if you haven’t had someone spoil it for you before seeing it. Regardless, bravo to these guys for picking Final Destination up out of the mud here for the best entry the franchise has seen in YEARS.
The Conclusion
It’s hard to top the original in anything, and if this one doesn’t top it, I think it can at least matches it. 1,2, and 5 are probably the hands down best one to watch if you don’t feel like watching them all, and I hear if you are lucky enough to see this one in 3D (and I’m not the biggest 3D fan) that it even adds to the film’s overall appeal for a change. So, I say this is a film you should for sure seek out if you are a fan of Final Destination.
The Rating (7/10)
