Tuesday 20 December 2011

Today's Review: Final Destination 5


Hooray, it's time for some more random, bloody deaths. While the last one was called "The Final Destination", they were clearly lying, because there is now another, and you'll be pleased to know that it continues the series long tradition of gradually getting worse.

This time round the main accident revolved around a suspension bridge collapse. I'm not exactly sure if the events shown are physically possible, but some strong winds come along, make the bridge crack up, and the middle falls out, impaling, drowning and slicing people in the process. Of course, this is Final Destination, so a character with hardly any background or character witnesses it all in a premonition, freaks out, and drags himself and several other caricatures out of a bus to safety.

We have a perverted fat guy, an uncaring rock chick, a general douche, all dying in over the top ways as the result of ridiculous situations. With the Final Destination series intent on making sure no place is safe in our minds, we have gory deaths taking place in a gymnastics hall, a laser eye surgery and several other locations. This time, however, the sequences of events are nowhere near as solid as in the other movies, and are mostly just a random collection of things that distract from the sudden final moment. Also, this movie seems to be set in an alternate universe where the people are made from a paper like substance that just rips apart when any sort of heavy physical contact occurs. Bones pop out, eyeballs detach and limbs fly at the slightest smash.

The recurring character of the coroner also returns to creep the survivors out, and of course provide them with the explanation for what's happening. Trouble is he also seems to be taking the piss, as he makes up an arbitrary rule about having to kill someone in order for Death to skip over you, something he clearly pulled out of his ass but which every character suddenly believes without a doubt. This adds an even bigger sense of stupidity to the movie, especially at the moment when I was figuring out what was going to happen in the death sequences by purely imagining the most ridiculous thing I could.

Still, this is a Final Destination movie. We know what to expect, blood, guts, random deaths in random places. But the other movies have pulled it off quite well, it seems that now they've just completely run out of ideas of how to make the story or situations believable. Perhaps with the next one they'll just provide an hour and a half of constant gore.

My rating: 2/5

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