Year of Release: 2011
Director: Steven Quale
Starring: Nicholas D'Agosto, Emma Bell, Arlen Escarpeta , Miles Fisher, Ellen Wroe, Jacqueline MacInnes Wood, P.J. Byrne, David Koechner, Courtney B. Vance, Brent Stait, Tony Todd
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 5
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Synopsis and Review
After the disappointing "The Final Destination" (or "Final Destination 4" from director David R. Ellis), the fifth installment of the series gave the creative reigns to the team of director Steven Quale and screenwriter Eric Heisserer, who has since written the films "Bird Box" for director Susanne Bier and the multiple award nominated "Arrival" for director Denis Villeneuve. The narrative this time around focuses on a young professional in sales by the name of Sam Lawton who is about to go on a company retreat with his colleagues. Sam has been contemplating a change of career and has the opportunity to go to Paris and work for a well know restaurant, something he has always dreamt of. The morning before embarking on the bus to go on the retreat, his co-worker and also girlfriend, Molly, breaks up with him, devastating him. During the trip he has a premonition that the bridge they're crossing collapses, and most of his co-workers and himself die in that premonition. Sam wakes up, manages to stop the bus, and get some of his closest friends and co-workers out of the bus, before the bridge collapses, taking the remainder of their team, and many other cars and people in them to the bottom of the sea. The police who starts investigating the case suspects foul play, and that Sam is somehow involved in it all. Soon after the dramatic accident, each one of the survivors start dying due to extreme and unusual occurrences, starting with Candice, the intern and girlfriend of Peter, who is crushed to witness her death. And the deaths don't stop with Candice, all of them start getting picked by the order in which they would have died, had they stayed on the bus.
Steven Quale started his career as a second-unit director for James Cameron's "Titanic" and has since then also worked in that same capacity for his other well known directorial endeavor, "Avatar". Mr. Quale's directorial debut was actually the documentary he co-directed with James Cameron, "Aliens of the Deep", though "Final Destination 5" is in reality his scripted feature directorial debut. Working within the parameters of the series and with a solid script from Eric Heisserer, who actually goes in slightly different directions than the other features of the series. "Final Destination 5" is a worthy continuation to the work James Wong did with "Final Destination" and "Final Destination 3", both of which leaned a bit more heavily into the supernatural aspect of the series, and not solely on the gratuitous aspect of the gore afflicted death scenes. This film gives the characters something more substantial to do and react to, providing some extra context into the relationships between the co-workers, and even giving some additional (even if limited) information on Sam and Molly's relationship. The film still illustrates the gruesome accidents, as it has become a staple of the series, but it smartly takes its time in setting up the scenarios. It also benefits from actors who are more subtle about their performances, creating characters that feel more authentic than the ones that paraded around on the prior chapter of the franchise (even if most of the characters on this chapter aren't the most layered ones of the whole series of films). The production team is competent even if unremarkable, but overall this film is an average addition to the series.
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