Reel Review Roundup

Final Destination 5 (MA)

Directed by: Steven Quale

Starring: Nicholas D’Agosto, Molly Harper, Miles Fisher

Two and a half stars

Review by Julian Wright

You didn’t really believe it was going to be the last one when they gave us The Final Destination in 2009, did you? The makers would have had us believe death had finally caught up with every last psychic teen and bumped them all off in imaginative ways. But horror buffs should know better than to fall for that old trick.

Friday the 13th: The Final Friday purported to be the last and so did Freddy’s Dead: The Final Friday. Let’s make a new horror movie rule: we should never believe producers when they put a “final” in the title.

Like those seemingly never-ending 1980s franchises and the Saw films, the Final Destination series sticks close to its formula and each sequel is more of the same. Same plot, same dopey characters but bloodier and gorier death scenes than its predecessor. But that is why we love them.

Several co-workers board a bus to take them to a team building retreat. There are the usual stock standard “characters”: Sam (Nicholas D’Agosto) and Molly (Emma Bell) are having relationship issues, Olivia (Jaqueline Macinnes Wood) is the busty one, lovebirds Peter (Miles Fisher) and Candice (Ellen Wroe) and their boss Dennis (David Koechner) who is just a jerk.

While stopped on a suspended bridge to wait for road works, Sam has a vision that the bridge collapses in a spectacular fashion and everyone dies. In a mad panic he, and a handful of his friends and co-workers, get off the bus just in time to see it fall into the river below.

Before they can say “that was close”, the surviving group start dying one by one in what appear to be bizarre accidents. Even stranger; they seem to be dying in the order they would have in Sam’s vision. To explain too much more of the plot would be a waste of time because if you have seen any one of the last four entries, you already know it.

What we are here for are the gooey, gross and shockingly violent and hilarious death scenes. And the one thing this series does well is death scenes. They are even more fun in three glorious dimensions. And judging by the squeals of disgust and laughter at the preview screening, this one has pleased its fans in this department.

The major letdown is making an audience sit through the same revelations as every other film in the series. We are already so far ahead of these lame-brained characters that restlessness begins to set in during the talky moments. Just get to the next death! While the routine path taken to get to this ‘destination” can be alternately yawn inducing and a minor thrill, I am hoping this is the final one.

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