Final Destination 5
One of the perks about working on a lot in LA is that you get to see a bunch of free movies. Last night, I saw this one (in 3D. As Jesus intended). I don’t want to bury the lede, so let me start by saying: this movie is awesome.
I can’t say if it’s better than Final Destination 2 (far and away the best in the series up to this point), but it’s certainly close. It’s a very well paced movie (around 90 minutes) and nothing feels extraneous. Unlike all of the other FDs, this one doesn’t have that boring segment toward the end of the 2nd act in which all of the remaining characters spend 15-20 minutes trying to figure out how to cheat death again and I start to zone out and try to think up semi-clever tweets about brunch or rap music. In this one, that chunk is cut down to a single scene and the revelation about what has to happen is brutal, interesting, and suggests a whole new direction for any other sequels in the series.
As always, the elaborate deaths are the focus of the film, and the ones in this movie are pretty spectacular. At this point, it’s more about misdirection than simply killing off the characters. A number of harmful objects are introduced into a scene and the tension is ratcheted up as the, lets be honest, lamb to be slaughtered blithely makes their way through the killing floor. Several of the scenes in this are so drawn out that you can almost feel the air being sucked out of the theater.
There isn’t much more to say. This movie is fun, never bogs down in unnecessary “plot”, and delivers exactly what one would want. First Fast Five and now this, does it really take 5 movies to perfect a formula? In the 80s it only took 4 (Rocky IV. I rest my case), but this 2011. The world is a different place and maybe we need just a little more time to get things right. I don’t know. All I do know is that I’m starting to get excited for the Smurfs 5 (or Smurf5 on the poster). That shit is going to be the Watch the Throne of Smurf movies.
