Dir. Steven Quale (2011)
A group of people escape a bridge collapse. You know what happens from there.
CAUTION: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
To close out the series, Final Destination 5 takes us to the scene of a corporation who is preparing to take their team on a retreat, boarding a bus to head across a giant suspension bridge. And, you guessed it, shit goes haywire on said bridge. Luckily, yet another guy is let in on Death’s design and sees the accident before it happens, saving people from their terrible deaths so that they can live long, happy lives and… oh wait, nope. They die even more terrible deaths later. I gotta be honest: at this point, if you see that I’m about to die in a huge mass casualty event, just fucking leave me. I don’t want to have my head squished by weights or have a giant sheet of glass dropped on my face. Just let me die, yo.
This one is a fun one, and is a return to the better films that came before The Final Destination came along and fucked things up with Death’s 3D bullshit. This film has some 3D as well, but it’s used sparingly enough that it doesn’t take you out of things the way that the previous film did. It doesn’t kill the vibes, and it usually heightens the action rather than make you wish that 3D had never been invented in 1851 to print out a picture of Queen Victoria. What? I did my research to figure out who to blame for The Final Destination’s monstrosity. The characters are generally compelling enough to make you somewhat care about how they’re going to die, and I love David Koechner so much.
There are a ton of great kills, including several on my Top 10 Final Destination Deaths list that’s coming along with these reviews! The characters are fairly well-acted, the deaths are badass, and Tony Motherfucking Todd is back! Which leads to a question that I desperately want to know the answer to: is Tony Todd Death? Is he just the coroner? Is coroner an elected position? Actually, coroner is an elected position. Why the fuck is coroner an elected position? Would Tony Todd win if he ran for coroner? Why the fuck does one of the main characters in this movie look suspiciously like Tom Cruise?
Tom Cruise from Wish.com.
I gotta be honest, I love this movie. If I had to rank the movies, this one would probably come in third, right behind the original and FD3. Normally, ranking third in a series of films would be a bad thing, but I love the Final Destination series so much it’s actually a huge compliment. It’s a great movie for anyone who loves Final Destination-style gore, which is handy because it’s a Final Destination movie. Are you also a fan of Final Destination movies? Guess what? FD5 knows this shit and closes the movie out with the best intro to closing credits in film history, where all of the deaths from the previous films are played over ACDC’s “If You Want Blood (You Got It). It’s fucking amazing. NOT TO MENTION!!! How could you possibly have a Final Destination movie after The Final Destination? It wasn’t called A Final Destination, it was called The Final Destination. If it’s not the last one, how could you call it that? CUZ THIS ONE’S A MOTHERFUCKING PREQUEL, BITCHES!
SURPRISE PREQUEL!
Who this movie is for: Literally everyone, it’s amazing, All horror fans, Suri Cruise so she can finally see her father (or close enough)
Bottom line: I love this movie, and you will too. There are a few 3D scenes that aren’t great, most notably the Tom Cruise-looking motherfucker on the bridge, but other than that, the kills are outstanding. If you can watch this movie and want to go get LASIK surgery, more power to you. For me, it’s one more thing that I’m not ever going to do because of these movies. It’s a great closer to the series, and while I’d like to say they wrapped it all up in a little bow, I will be first in line to see every Final Destination movie they ever decide to make.
