Film Review: ‘Final Destination 5’ Plays Like 3D Cartoon For Horror Fans

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CHICAGO – The “Final Destination” movies have become an increasingly-excessive orgy of gore with a twisted sense of humor – the Grim Reaper isn’t just coming for you, he’s going to have some fun before you go. The first four films in the franchise represented the typical downward spiral common in horror series with each subsequent entry falling a little deeper down the rabbit hole of typical horror genre traps. The newest entry, “Final Destination 5,” opening tomorrow, definitely marks an uptick after the last horrendous installment and it has moments that work (including some of the most unusually-entertaining “quality kills” in the entire series) but it ultimately fails to add anything new to the unexpected “Final Destination” anthology.

Rating: 2.5/5.0

The last “Final Destination” was an absolute train wreck, using the new trend of 3D in bafflingly stupid ways and presenting the least likable group of characters in horror that year. It was uninspired, uninteresting, and awful. “Final Destination 5” is significantly better with a more entertaining cast of characters, more wickedly bizarre death scenes, a truly impressive set-piece involving a collapsing bridge, and an ending that plays to fans of the series in a unique, unexpected way.

Read Brian Tallerico’s full review of “Final Destination 5” in our reviews section.

Every “Final Destination” film has built itself around one major set-piece that the lead character was “lucky” enough to foretell in a graphic vision of the gory future. The producers of the series have already featured an airplane explosion (2000’s “Final Destination”), a pile-up on a freeway (2003’s “Final Destination 2”), and tragedies at an amusement park (2006’s “Final Destination 3”) and a speedway (2009’s “The Final Destination”). This time, they turn to a bridge collapse as a group of co-workers are headed on a company retreat.

Sam Lawton (Nicholas D’Agosto) is having a really bad day that’s about to get much, much worse. His cute girlfriend Molly (Emma Bell) just broke up with him before he got on the bus to spend a weekend with her on a company retreat. Co-workers/friends on the bus include close friend Peter (Miles Fisher), his intern/girlfriend Candice (Ellen Wroe), newly-promoted Nathan (Arlen Escarpeta), slimy Isaac Palmer (P.J. Byrne), sexy Olivia (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood), and boss Dennis Lapman (David Koechner). Sam has a vision of most of them dying in graphic ways (Candice gets a sailboat mast through the stomach while Dennis is burned alive) in a ridiculously over-the-top bridge collapse and saves their lives. For now.

Continue reading for Brian Tallerico’s full “Final Destination 5” review.

Final Destination 5
Photo credit: Warner Bros. Pictures