Are you ready for more brutal freak accidents claiming the lives of innocent teens who cheated death? Well, you better get ready because the fifth installment in this popular franchise is finally here. Final Destination 5 is not a good but a great movie. It features even more elaborate death scenes while being as gruesome as ever. The opening bridge scene is a fucking work of art. It lasts for almost five minutes, making it the longest opening sequence in the whole series. This isn’t some bargain bin straight-to-DVD bullshit but a visually impressive movie with a budget of $40 million.
When you look at the cast, you’ll notice just a couple of familiar names which means most of the money went towards the production values. This doesn’t mean the cast did a bad job as our youngings were quite good. To help them out, we have David Koechner and Courtney B. Vance, the only two adults in the room. Of course, you can count on the almighty Tony Todd to add some flair to this already good movie. I don’t need to tell you what’s going to happen as I think you already know. The formula has remained the same for the last ten years.
Teenagers barely survive and then the invisible enemy starts taking them out one by one. 2010s brought with them a long-forgotten gimmick of 3D visuals. It seems to be all the rage now and I can totally understand why. I’ve seen a couple of movies in 3D and they looked great. Jackass 3D and Piranha 3D are just some of the examples. However, I’ve watched the regular 2D version of Final Destination 5 and I can tell you it still kicks ass. Sure, there will be a couple of scenes that are specifically designed for this technology but they’re almost just as effective in 2D.
What’s not effective though is character development. Again we will get stereotypical teens doing stupid shit and talking nonsense. This filler content seems to be a bit more boring than in the previous sequels but at least the accidents are juicy. The physical appearance of the actors playing the roles of doomed teens is too generic. They feel like NPCs destined to become the victims. Jacqueline MacInnes Wood as Olivia stands out a bit, I’ll have to admit that. Unfortunately, her accident is the one that fucked me up the most. I just hate everything that has to do with, well, I’m not going to tell you what. You’ll have to watch the movie to find out.
The running time is just ninety minutes, so you have to listen to these obnoxious teens for too long. And you know most of them are going to get it. Moreover, you can make the whole movie into a fun game of who’s going to die next. Speaking of dying, the accidents themselves have now become completely tongue-in-cheek. Final Destination 5 takes great pleasure in toying with us and making us think that something bad is about to happen. Then, nothing happens only for all hell to break loose in the next scene.
This is a highly entertaining movie, especially if you decide to watch it with friends or under the influence. There are also numerous references to the previous Final Destination movies. For example, there’s a picture of Roy next to a race car, the same race car that caused that horrific accident in the last movie. I’ll leave the rest of them for you to discover.
Director: Steven Quale
Writers: Eric Heisserer, Jeffrey Reddick
Cast: Nicholas D’Agosto, David Koechner, Emma Bell, Courtney B. Vance, Tony Todd, Barclay Hope
Fun Facts: Many of the characters have names of famous horror movie directors (Friedkin, Hooper, Castle).
Rating:
IMDb Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1622979/
