Monday 20 May
 
 

Grand Duel

Lee Van Cleef enjoyed a secondary career in Italy cranking out spaghetti Westerns, with little regard to quality. However, 1972’s Grand Duel — aka The Big Showdown — is deserving of its Grand label. No wonder Quentin Tarantino borrowed its sweeping theme song by Luis Bacalov for Kill Bill; you'll recognize it in two notes.
05/20/2013 | Comments 0

The Last Stand

Early in The Last Stand, the small-town sheriff played by Arnold Schwarzenegger says, "It's my day off. Should be a quiet weekend." That's the new way of saying, "I've got one week to retirement," because it signals — with flashing neon and everything — that life is going to royally upend those plans.
05/17/2013 | Comments 0

Texas Chainsaw

One of the most inconsistent franchises in movie history is the one beget by Tobe Hooper's 1974 classic, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. How does one follow all those less-than-beloved sequels? Lionsgate's latest in the series — the seventh — has a solution: Ignore 'em.
05/17/2013 | Comments 0

Captain America: Collector’s Edition

Not long after Batman changed Hollywood in the summer of 1989, every studio wanted to have the next comics-based blockbuster. I remember visiting Penn Square Mall’s multiplex (as I did often back then) and seeing a poster for Captain America. The one-sheet was comprised of little more than a close-up of Cap’s iconic shield and a promise to arrive next summer.
05/16/2013 | Comments 0

Dark Circles

With the Broken Lizard comedy troupe becoming increasingly broken, member Paul Soter has branched off to write and direct something about as far away as one can get from the likes of Super Troopers and Beerfest: a horror film. Now that I've seen it, I'm thinking maybe he should stay on his own.
05/16/2013 | Comments 0
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Horror

Final Destination 5


‘Final Destination 5’ has plenty of blood and nearly no brains. But as long as you know that …

Rod Lott August 17th, 2011  

Last summer, the fourth “Final Destination” movie swapped a numeral for a definitive article, because producers figured the franchise had run its course. Then “The Final Destination” made $181 million worldwide, so this summer, we have another chapter, and the numbering system has been reinstated.

So has everything else. As has been the case over the course of the hit horror series, each chapter adheres to its tried-and-true template. In fact, it could be argued that the movies are written from a “Mad Libs” page, but the only variable to change is the epic disaster that kick-starts each one.

With airport, freeway, amusement park and racetrack exhausted, “Final Destination 5” has filled in the blank with “suspension bridge.”

That’s where our supposed hero (Nicholas D’Agosto, “Fired Up!”) convinces some cookie-cutter co-workers to get off the bus, because he’s just had a vision that the structure is about to go all River Kwai on them. Of course, it then does, and the unseen Grim Reaper spends the rest of the film getting them anyway, in methods seemingly invented via collaboration between Rube Goldberg and the Marquis de Sade.

These five flicks — and you can bet there will be more to come — are critic-proof: Like the “Saw” series, either you like them or you hate them, and no amount of convincing is going to sway you to the other side.

Despite all their flaws — and admittedly, there are many — I happen to like them.

On the downside, you have stock characters that fill labels more than roles — i.e. Hot Girl, Token Black, etc. — essayed by actors of limited talents. Hardly anyone is likable, but that’s OK since none of them survive by the end credits. (Relax — that’s only a spoiler if you’ve never seen any of the previous four, which means you’re never going to watch the fifth, either.)

D’Agosto is as dull as his name is apostrophized; his “meh” presence is matched by a mopey, mousy Emma Bell, who was livelier in “Frozen” and season one of “The Walking Dead.” Briefly reprising his role as the sagelike coroner from all the chapters but the fourth is Tony Todd (TV’s “24”), and he’s like Laurence Olivier compared to the expendable kids.

On the upside, you have the death sequences, even if they lack the creativity, cleverness or intricacy of its predecessors. The highlights here involve a folding gymnast, a Lasik machine gone haywire and more acupuncture needles than are comfortable.

Director Steven Quale (“Aliens of the Deep”) and screenwriter Eric Heisserer (the remake of “A Nightmare on Elm Street”) save their only true surprise of the show for the last.

“Final Destination 5” is what it is.

I enjoyed it, even if, after 48 hours, I’ve mostly forgotten it.

 
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