Movie Info
Movie Name: Final Destination 5
Studio: New Line Cinema
Genre(s): Horror
Release Date(s): August 12, 2011
MPAA Rating: R
Ok, who’s up for a round of “London Bridge”?
Sam Lawton (Nicholas D’Agosto) is an aspiring cook and narrowly avoids a disaster when his company’s chartered bus is destroyed in a deadly bridge collapse. After a warning at the funerals by a mysterious caretaker (Tony Todd), Sam finds the people he saved from the accident being killed off in violent ways. While being watched by a suspicious FBI Agent Jim Block (Courtney B. Vance), Sam finds the accident has brought him closer to his former girlfriend Molly Harper (Emma Bell). As the deaths increase, Sam learns that the only way to escape death may to take another life.
That is one flexible girl!
Directed by Steven Quale, Final Destination 5 followed up The Final Destination in 2009. The movie was released in 3D and was generally met with positive reviews. The film didn’t fare as well at the box office due to high competition from Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
The Final Destination films have been a bit up-and-down since their onset. I thought the first film was ok and enjoyed some of the sequels a bit more. With a rather ho-hum fourth film which has the series weaknesses exemplified, I wasn’t sure how Final Destination 5 could be better.
I’m a comedian…I was destined to die!
I was pleasantly surprised by Final Destination 5 which is one of the better films in the series. The movie continues to add arbitrary rules to the whole “cheating death” thing. While previous films had Death skipping people, predicted by photographs, and stopped by a child’s birth, this film added the new rule of “replacement deaths” which has the survivors considering murder. It doesn’t make much sense, but none of the rules ever made sense.
The cast also is in line with the other films. It picks a lot of up-and-comers who fare ok, but no one in the cast really stands out. Nihcholas D’Agosto is fine as the lead, and Miles Fisher plays the best friend who turns into a nightmare. Emma Bell plays a generic girlfriend who seems to be immune to Death’s touch since she survived the vision, and David Koechner takes a rare semi-dramatic role as the boss of the paper company (which is ironic since he also was a paper company employee in The Office).
Corrective eye surgery goes wrong!
The visuals of the movie continue to be the reason to turn to Final Destination 5. The bridge collapse at the beginning of the film is pretty impressive and many of the deaths are fun (like the gymnast, the eye surgery death, and the acupuncture death), and it always feels pretty mundane when someone goes out from a simple shooting in the series.
*****Spoiler Alert***** What really saves Final Destination 5 is the ending. Throughout the film, Sam talks about getting a chef job in Paris. Ironically, I thought “boy, Final Destination sure has a love affair with Paris”, and it was starting to irritate me that multiple people have escaped death through visions…and are always suspected. I surprisingly didn’t make the connection. It turns out that Final Destination 5 is a prequel to the original Final Destination and there are some references that it predates the film with visuals and references (like beepers and cell phones). It is actually kind of smart and a fun twist which most of the series endings became a bit too predictable.
Planes are cool…right?
Final Destination 5 is one of the better entires in the Final Destination series. Unfortunately, you kind of need see the first four Final Destination movies to enjoy it…and they can sometimes be a bit tedious. With a less impressive performance, but better reviews, Final Destination 6 has yet to appear, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it eventually hit the screens.
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