Final Destination 5 (2011)

Death can really be an asshole sometimes.

Death still isn’t satisfied in the fifth installment of this cult horror franchise, setting out to claim the lives of shaken co-workers who cheated him when they heeded a colleague’s premonition about an unstable suspension bridge.

The Final Destination franchise has always been a favorite of mine but The Final Destination that came out in 2009 was just plain terrible and really disappointed me but this one is a happy welcome back.

You know what’s going to happen, when it’s going to happen, and why it’s going to happen but how everything happens here is where the real fun lies and to be honest, there is a lot of fun to be had here. I didn’t see this in 3-D, but I could only imagine just how great it must have looked with all these crazy kills happening all the time.

I mean you got heads flying, heads exploding, cars blowing up, arteries being slashed, and much much more, and there all coming at you in 3-D which makes it so much cooler but just watching it in the regular 2-D version was still cool since all the death sequences were just flat out awesome, and almost everyone was better than the last.

However, the problem with all of these films is that each and every script is just terrible. This one here is pretty laughable at points because when the deaths aren’t happening, you get these long and tedious scenes where people  are trying to over-come their fears of this lingering sense of death, while two fall in love, and others just don’t give a shit and play off some terrible comedy. All of these films have this, with the last one before this being the worst, but it’s just something we’ve seen before in almost every one and it’s to a certain point where everything just becomes mechanical.

The climax here is also pretty dumb and feels forced because it wants to somehow connect to almost every single film of the franchise but seems stupid and the last half is probably where this film had me laughing the most of all. The kill-or-be-killed concept could have been used to a lot more of an interesting effect, but it leads to an underwhelming climax that goes against the total spirit of the series. Final Destination is all about these people dying in freak accidents, not having these people kill each other like every other horror movie!

I think the whole casting idea for The Final Destination films is to find all of the most attractive looking waiters and waitresses in LA and put in this film, without any real acting experience at all because they really picked themselves some beauties here. Nicholas D’Agosto, who some people may remember from Fired Up! is here as Sam and is OK; Emma Bell who’s been in almost shitty CW drama is pretty cheesy as Molly; and Miles Fisher is a guy who basically looks exactly like Tom Cruise, and actually played a Tom Cruise impersonator in Superhero Movie, but he’s OK too. The only real amazing one here is the guy who’s been in all of them, Tony Todd, who does that same snarly-voice act he’s been doing ever since the days of The Candyman. He’s the man.

Consensus: Though the writing is pretty cheesy, and the last act is just plain horrible, Final Destination 5 has some crazy gore, awesome things just flying at your face constantly, and even better deaths than before. Well, at least they were better than that crappy last one.

6/10=Rental!!