Director: Steven Quale
Starring: Nicolas D’Agosto, Emma Bell, David Koechner, Courtney B. Vance
Certificate: 15
Running Time: 92 minutes
Synopsis: In this fifth installment, Death is just as omnipresent as ever, and is unleashed after one man’s premonition saves a group of co-workers from a terrifying suspension bridge collapse. But this group of unsuspecting souls was never supposed to survive, and, in a terrifying race against time, the ill-fated group frantically tries to discover a way to escape Death’s sinister agenda.
The FINAL DESTINATION franchise began in 2000 with the release of the original and the intriging premise of teen Alex (Devon Sawa), who after a premonition that an aircraft he and his high school class are on explodes after take-off. After a fight breaks out on-board, some of his classmates are thrown off whilst trying to get him to stop creating panic amongst the other passengers, his vision comes true only to find that death doesn’t like to be cheated. That film along with its subsequent sequels all followed the same script never straying too far from the original’s concept, only changing the characters they follow and the opening set-up with new victims and even more elaborate deaths.
FINAL DESTINATION 5 I can honestly say has the best opening set up of all, not only do we get to know the characters a bit more than in the previous sequels but Sam’s (Nicolas D’Agosto) premonition has some jaw dropping moments during the climatic bridge collapse. Having debut Director Steven Quale, who worked closely with James Cameron on AVATAR certainly helps, the bridge collapse looking fantastic in 3D, sweeping camera shots creating some vertigo induced moments and gruesome effects coming right at you through the screen. The death scenes are of course what bring the crowds, and one particular early scene after the bridge collapse left me with my mouth hitting the floor, for all the sinister build-up music and close calls during the lead up I still wasn’t expecting what came next. The great Tony Todd (CANDYMAN) also pops up again as the Coroner (or is he ‘death’ in human form?) always knowing a bit too much about our characters predicament.
Now for a franchise to get to a fifth entry you would expect the writers to be flagging for new ideas, the bonus for the writers to this series is they only need to think up more creative ways to kill people. What FINAL DESTINATION 5 deserves credit for is the way they try and fill a few of the gaping plot-holes of earlier entries. These include, why the police have never viewed the person with a premonition with suspition that they may have somehow been involved with its cause or why when the characters realise there maybe a way to cheat death by mixing with order of victims no one has took it upon themselves to selfishly save themselves and taking another persons life in the process.
Now lets be honest folks, when buying a ticket for a FINAL DESTINATION movie, no one is going into the theatre expecting the calibre of acting like DeNiro or the sort of script that David Mamet would produce. No, these films are a strange breed, people flock to them for a fun night out with their friends or perfect for a date. This fifth entry in terms of plot making more sense, instead of the cut and paste style we have been accustomed to, is easily the best since the original and actually has a great surprising finale that comes full circle to tidy up the franchise nicely… until the next destination.
