Final Destination 5
Director: Steven Quale
Writer: Eric Heisserer
Sequel to: Final Destination, Final Destination 2, Final Destination 3, The Final Destination
Cast: Nicholas D’Agosto, Emma Bell, Miles Fisher, Ellen Wroe, Jacqueline MacInnes Wood, P.J. Byrne, Arlen Escarpeta, David Koechner, Courtney B. Vance, Tony Todd
Seen on: 21.9.2024

Plot:
Sam (Nicholas D’Agosto) dreams of becoming a chef, but for now he is stuck in an office job with his best friend Peter (Miles Fisher) and his girlfriend Molly (Emma Bell). As the office prepares to go on a retreat, and Molly prepares to end things with Sam, Sam has a vision of the bridge their bus is taking collapsing and killing them all. In his panic, he manages to rile up some of his co-workers, getting them precious moments earlier out and saving their lives. But then the survivors start dying in strange accidents.

Well, for completionism’s sake, it is done. But even though there was one twist that actually managed to surprise me, the rest of the film was more meh than anything else.

I will have to admit that the final reveal actually did surprise me, and I quite liked the idea of that reveal that I’m keeping vague on purpose so you might have this moment of surprise, too. That being said, it is such a surprise because there’s very little alluding to it. It works anyway, especially from the characters’ perspective, but for the audience, there should have been more easter eggs.

Anyhow, it is definitely the best thing about the film, the rest being almost completely forgettable. There are a couple of deaths that do stick in memory – especially the gymnast (because it is so completely ridiculous that she would get these kind of injuries that it breaks even the believability of this cinematic universe) and the eyelaser (because it was, again, laced with misogyny, starting with the general characterization of Olivia). But other than that, I’d have a hard time telling you what happened even after only a few days.

And it wasn’t just the plot, but the characters, too. There were traces of actual persons there, but in the end, they never grew into more than just traces. This made it hard to root for anybody or care in the slightest what happened to them.

I have to admit that I was pretty much checked out from the film from the get-go. I couldn’t even muster the energy to complain about the fact that Peter is dating a teenage intern which is all kinds of fucked up. If the film had been worse, I might have found more energy for anger, but it was so very bland and mediocre that not even that was possible.

Summarizing: oh well.