Harefooted Halloween: Final Destination 5

What I Liked: Some of the death ruses are especially well done.  These are the smaller things that eventually build up to the actual deathblow.  Like there’s a little upturned screw resting on a balance beam while a gymnast is practicing their routine on it.  You’re just waiting for a foot to plop down on it and get stabbed.  Or someone else goes in for laser eye surgery and the machine malfunctions burning the retina.  Neither of these are what kills the person but they’re good squirm worthy setups.

This is probably the best looking film in the series.  No offense to cinematographer Brian Pearson (My Bloody Valentine (2009)) but I would credit this more to director Steven Quale.  He’s a James Cameron protégé who’s worked with him all the way back since The Abyss.  He shot second unit on Titanic and Avatar.  The effects are also a huge step up from the previous film with the showpiece being the initial bridge collapse scene (Greg Baxter (Zathura, Pokémon: Detective Pikachu)).  I do wanna mention the opening credits are neat too with various deadly objects from the other pictures smashing through glass over and over.  Sorta hypnotizing.

Most of the characters are your usual blandness but similar to part 4 there’s one survivor with some dimension.  He lost the love of his life to one of these freak accidents and has become completely despondent.  The destruction all around him is too devastating.  He gets the idea that if he kills someone else, anyone else, Death will spare him.  So he goes nuts and targets his friends with a gun.  This idea of one of the survivors being so desperate he’s willing to murder to save his own life is flirted with in part 3 but it’s taken much further here.  Usually in the other films the characters attempt the opposite, they save each other’s lives from the deathtraps in the hope that that brings them permanent salvation.  It never works so it’s interesting to see a new approach.

What I Didn’t Like: Folks did not seem too enthused about how comedic they went with part 4 so they made part 5 serious.  In fact it’s the most serious one.  I mean sure, there’s comic relief but the jokes aren’t funny.  If you’ve been with me on this FD journey you know I like the sillier installments so this is not a turn I’m all that into.  If you’re gonna go this route I don’t think they went far enough.  Having brooding leads and attempting to make the deaths weightier while also keeping the ridiculous Rube Goldberg type elements just doesn’t mesh for me.  I’ll go more into what I think an absolutely sincere version might look like in the wrap up.

Overall Impressions: The technical side of things gets a nice upgrade which I definitely appreciate.  However, the tone and meat of the movie isn’t my favorite.  It’s probably my least favorite actually due to the dour attitude.  And what little humor they do throw in is utterly terrible.

Like the rest of them you’ll get your elaborate deaths and there’s plenty of amusement to be had in them.  Once again, it’s the stuff in between the deaths that determines more than anything how the picture shakes out, because nuanced characters and a truly thought provoking plot still haven’t materialized (with some minor exceptions).  So this one’s still fine but just doesn’t have the goofiness that I prefer.