Final Destination 5: "Death Doesn't Like To Be Cheated"

Director: Steven Quaile
Writer:    Eric Heisserer
Starring: Nicholas D'Agosto

                Emma Bell
                Miles Fisher
                Ellen Wroe
                Jacqueline MacInnes Wood
                P J Byrne
                Arlen Escarpeta
                David Koechner
                Courtney B Vance
                Tony Todd
Rating:    *

So here we have the 5th entry (really) in the Final Destination Series. Nothing new happens, nothing scary happens and nothing vaguely interesting happens. Ever.

This time around we start with a bridge collapsing beneath unsuspecting passengers on a bus. On said bus are a bunch of bored (& boring) employees for some company, going on a team building retreat. The lucky person to get the vision in this film is Sam (D'Agosto). He sees the imminent death of the group, and when he eventually gets over it, he saves his friends from the destruction about to unfold.

Also on the bus we have Sam's girlfriend Molly (Bell), his best friend Peter and his girlfriend Candice (Fisher & Wroe). Following behind is the typical pretty snob Olivia (Wood), pervy bigot Isaac (Byrne) and somebody called Nathan (Escarpeta); a character with no story depth or interest. The boss of the company is Dennis (Koechner), a dull, bitter and quite honestly crap character who is about as pointless as this film. The reason I'm not going into detail about characters or performances is because there is nothing to say. The writers have clearly given up on writing characters you care about (like in 1,2 and occasionally 3), just to make some money. I believe the phrase is beating a dead horse...

The only other two characters are Agent Jim Block (Vance) and William Bludworth (Todd). Now Jim is the same as the police in pretty much every film, he accuses Sam of being a terrorist or something and refuses to listen when being told the truth. He really starts to get on your tits and in the end you genuinely don't give a tiny rats ass. The only good thing is seeing Todd return as Bludworth. He still bought the creepy (like in 1 & 2) and gave you a sort of nostalgic feeling about the first films. He is no stranger to horror films (Candyman), but still his talent and knowledge of the genre fail to help this film, at all.

The end is the same as the last 3, one character thinks they can cheat death and kill everyone, of course dying in the process and looking a right knob all at the same time. One thing I will say, is that there is a nice twist at the end, but by that time it is to late and doesn't help the film one bit.

The gore is over-the-top, the deaths are far to unrealistic (even for the FD films), and the 3D is pointless and distracting. Which reminds me, film studios need to realise that when 3D is used badly it is completely distracting and a lot of the times ruins a film completely. Stop doing it, it hurts!!! All in all, I would have to say it's time to leave this series alone before they ruin any credibility the first two may have left.                

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