Final Destination 5: Breaking Bridges and Minds

We have finally come to the final, Final Destination…for now. For the next week. This one is a significant upgrade from Final Destination 4. It’s a little treat for sticking it out. The credits could use a little upgrade, though. The spacing between letters in these names is enough to send me into an OCD induced rage. It’s making me itchy. But look TONY TODD!

We pan over a frankly incredible breakfast spread as the employees of Presage Paper are preparing to head on a weekend retreat. Turns out our main character, Sam (Nicholas D’Agosto) made all of this. This is way too much work for your colleagues. Especially since his friend and boss, Peter (Miles Fisher) points out he sucks at his actual job.

Sam’s girlfriend Molly (Emma Bell) rolls up and breaks up with him. Right before they spend a weekend away on a work retreat. Feels like this could have waited. Especially given she is only breaking up with him to get him to follow his dreams of being a chef in Paris. Like, she still loves him and all. Peter is having no such love problems as we see he is planning to meet up with the office intern Candice (Ellen Wroe). I cannot stress enough that he is her boss, and that makes this weird. And probably against company policy.

Olivia (Jaqueline MacInnes Wood) rocks up wearing the most inappropriate outfit ever. She should be at a concert. Does she look hot? Yes. Is that how she should show up at an office job? Probably not. She changes and while she does Candice calls her fat? Which she is not. At all. But Olivia clears this up by saying that it’s just her boobs. I’m not sure anyone has, in the history of humanity, mistaken boobs for fatness. I don’t understand what happened here.

At the buffet table, Issac is creeping on a newly single Molly. He thinks he’s a ladies’ man, but I’m incredibly suspicious. She is not interested. Finally, Dennis (David Koechner) shows up. He is the big boss and just generally an asshole. But it’s David Koechner, so we expected that.

We switch to inside the factory where we meet Nathan (Arlen Escarpeta). He is having a fight with one of the factory leaders, Roy (Brent Stait). Roy isn’t very into listening to Nathan just because he went to college when Roy has 15 years of experience in the job. He’s pissed that Roy is going on the retreat and getting the day off. No retreat is a good time, Roy.

Now that we’ve met the crew, everyone loads onto the bus. There’s a ‘watch your step’ sign, as is standard, but it freaks Sam out a bit. Why are these vision people terrified of the most normal things? The bus is playing a super interesting video explaining the retreat. The company is called something 180. So we know it’s evil. Then a log truck drives by. But don’t worry, Sam, log trucks are only scary when you’re behind them.

Issac gets another phone call from some woman and heads to the bathroom to take the call. There is no way these calls are real. He is paying for them or someone is deep into pranking this man.

The bus pulls onto a bridge that’s under construction. For some reason, they have to stop halfway across. Sam cuts his finger on the side of his seat. This is a weirdly common way for visions to happen in this franchise. He licks it. Ugh. That bus seat was probably disgusting. Dust in the Wind plays. That’s our song for this movie folks. Then inexplicable wind blows.

Sam asks Peter if he feels like something’s wrong, but Peter doesn’t feel shit. He probably should. They are sawing into this bridge and they do something really wrong that causes a fissure to run along the whole thing and just crack it in a bunch of places. A huge break forms right in front of the bus and everyone starts panic exiting. This is a shitty bridge. I’m from Pittsburgh, so I know what I’m talking about here.

Candice falls right off and gets impaled by a sailboat. It looks very much like it wanted to be 3D. I didn’t think it was, but I checked and yea it was originally 3D. These things should be less obvious. Issac finally leaves the bus bathroom just as it tips over into the river. He does not survive the fall.

Bits of concrete fly through the air. Olivia loses her glasses, and like a cartoon character, is lost without them. Most of us can still kinda manage. She’s acting like someone has removed her eyes. The bridge splits again and the center section is just floating in the middle. It’s a suspension bridge. This is important here.

Sam helps Molly walk along a beam to get to the stable part of the bridge. He turns to see Olivia struggling and helps her get to the beam. She is not as agile as Molly and falls to the river below. She survives! Until a car falls on top of her. Ahh. One of the suspension ropes flings off and whips into Nathan, so he’s gone. Dennis is hanging off the side of the bridge. He probably should have taken his chances with the fall because a tanker of hot tar spills on him.

Only Sam and Peter are left, precariously stuck on the separated bridge section now. They both get to a railing and are hanging off of it, trying to climb over to Molly when a construction trailer starts to lean off the edge. Several rebar rods slip and go through Peter. This effect is rough. Sorry Peter. Sam looks on in horror as a sheet of metal falls toward him, cutting him in half. And zoom! Back to when he cut his finger. It was all a premonition.

He predictably freaks out and drags Molly off the bus. Several others follow him, namely all the people we’ve talked about, asking him what the deal is. Until it becomes clear. They watch the destruction from the road.

The police bring everyone in for questioning. I don’t know how they think Sam could have orchestrated this whole thing. There wasn’t like an explosion or anything. At one point, they find out his relationship with Molly just ended that morning and question if that was why he might have taken the bridge down. But. How? How could he have pulled that together in a matter of hours? Anyway, forensics determines it was high winds. And that ridiculous construction nonsense, but I guess we aren’t going to mention that. 86 people died.

The news is reporting on all the deaths from the ‘highway improvement project’ at the memorial service for the Presage employees. Seems in terrible taste. Dennis is giving us the speech. Please do not let my boss give my memorial speech. He even accidentally says Issac is dead. And he isn’t, but it’s hilarious and Issac sucks, so I’ll give him that one. Tony Todd is creeping at the memorial, as he does, and lets our survivors know that death (is that you man?) doesn’t like to be cheated.

Sam has a second job as a chef at a French restaurant. Because he doesn’t value sleep, probably. Or because the economy sucks, and he doesn’t get paid enough at either. He heads over to Molly’s after work. Unannounced. Don’t visit your ex unannounced. It’s in poor form. But she’s okay with it and lets him know that she just wants him to take the internship in France! He was going to give it up for her. The lights flicker. I think they’re back together now.

Okay, so this is my favorite FD death scene ever. And my sister was a like, a full on college gymnast, so I only showed it to her after she retired. Candice heads to gymnastics practice because girly is still in college. She tells Peter that she isn’t ready, but today is the last practice of her career so she feels obligated to go. I become a little more concerned about the age gap here. It doesn’t look like too much, but she’s a college intern and he is a manager at this big company. It feels like too much of a power gap. He seems like he actually cares about her though, and he goes and watches her practice. I don’t think this is allowed.

Candice spins rubber bands around her wrists. It’s a good luck ritual she does all the time. One of them breaks. She is kinda panicked but her coach tells her to get going. The AC is getting repaired and drips condensation almost directly onto a busted wire. It drops a screw face up onto the balance beam where Candice is practicing a super basic routine for a collegiate athlete. But fine. I shiver in terror as she almost steps on the screw. She dismounts without issue. She almost steps in the water/electricity trap mentioned about but doesn’t.

Candice heads over to the bars. Another teammate, Porter, mounts the beam. Sorry girl, you’re not in for a good day. Better than Candice, though. Porter does like a back walkover or something similar and lands right on the screw. She falls over, fair, and knocks the bin of chalk over into a fan. It blows chalk into the air. Candice is doing giants on the bars, but when the chalk blinds her, she lets go mid spin for unknown reasons. She lands horribly, folding herself in half backwards and snapping her spine. They could have had her land on her neck and die that way. That’s possible. But in Final Destination it’s not about what’s possible, it’s about what’s insane. This could not happen. But by God it’s nuts.

Peter is jacked all the way up. He saw it all. He tells Sam it doesn’t make sense. We see Tony Todd walking around picking up bodies. He is a coroner, or mortician, or he likes dead things.

All the survivors are at the office. They drink and toast to those who have died. Issac rummages through people’s desk. I think he steals a penny. He definitely steals a massage gift certificate. He heads right to the spa to cash in. Usually it takes forever to get an appointment, but fate knows what it’s doing with this asshole.

Issac is a gross racist and misogynist to the receptionist. She knows how to handle dudes like him and takes him back to the room, sets him up on the table, and sends in an elderly woman to do his massage. Kudos. This lady is slamming him on to the table and cracking all his joints while he cries out in pain and she speaks only Cantonese. When she brings out the acupuncture needles, he complains they are probably not clean. She gets out the disinfectant. So she speaks English just not to him.

She places the needles and tells him he needs to rest for 30 minutes and leaves him to it. Issac is trying to relax with 100 needles in his body when some incense falls and lights a rag on fire. He calls for help, but no one hears or possibly cares. His jiggling on the table breaks one of the legs and he falls to the floor, pushing all those needles all the way in and sending the disinfectant spilling everywhere. He stands and tries to take out the needles instead of running for it. As he does, his phone rings, knocking over a candle into the highly flammable disinfectant! Thankfully, he flings himself into the wall and falls to the floor, out of the way. Before we can breathe a sigh of relief, a buddha statue that must weigh 100lbs falls over from the jolt and smashes his head. No one really cares.

At the office, Peter is pretty upset. He did just watch his girlfriend die horrifically. He throws a coffee cup at the wall, smashing it. Dennis considers this suspicious enough to call the detectives from earlier and report him. I thought we decided the bridge collapse was a force of nature? What are they still investigating?

The office group is at the spa and sees Issac’s body being brought out. They see Tony Todd there again! They are getting suspicious of this man now. Sam runs over to ask what he thinks he is doing and Tony points out that he is the coroner and thus is just doing his job. He also tells them he has seen this shit before. They should have died on the bridge. If they don’t want to be swiftly murdered, they should kill someone and take their remaining life. Why is this a thing in this one? Especially after the ending. He doesn’t share this idea with Alex or Kim. Anyway, Peter instantly believes this and is kinda on board. Nathan is the only logical one and thinks Tony is off his rocker. Of course he’ll be wrong.

At this point, Sam reveals that Molly is actually safe because she didn’t even die in his premonition. This is apparently the wrong thing to say to Peter. He flips out and storms off.

Olivia isn’t with everyone else because she got picked up from the office, after knocking over a photo and shattering it, to go get LASIK. She’s pretty scared. This isn’t helped when she walks into a room with the most terrifying looking equipment ever. There’s also a shelf of teddy bears which the Doc says are for the children. I didn’t know kids could get LASIK. Olivia grabs a bear for herself and gets her head locked into the machine. I’ll stick with glasses, thanks. She is being a little aggressive with the teddy and pops his eye off. Foreshadowing? The doctor pulls out some eyelid holder open thing that should only exist in nightmares.

He leaves her all strapped in because there’s some missing paperwork. This does not happen. Or if it ever does, you should run because you are about to die. Doctors do not leave patients alone mid procedure unless they’re in a horror movie. Of course, a glass of water falls onto the outlet for the machine and it fires up to the highest levels. Olivia hears it beeping and grabs for the remote. Instead, she knocks it over, turning the whole thing on. It fries her eye then her hand before she can get free. By now Sam and Molly have shown up to tell Olivia that death is pissed at them and they and the doctor come in just in time to see her standing, eye gone, screaming. She slips on the teddy bears eye and falls out the window to the cars parked below. Her good eye pops out and is promptly run over by a car.

The detective is hella suspicious of these deaths now. He says he doesn’t think that Molly and Sam did it, but he wants to know what they think is going on. They go ahead and let him in on the whole death has a plan thing that is the crux of these movies and he…blows them off. Dude, you asked. You said give me whatever you have. You do not get to be mad it isn’t a great explanation. Sam and Molly discuss his premonition and we have reached the moment that the crew discovers the deaths are happening in the same order! We knew we had to get here, lemons. But damn if it doesn’t take a while in this one. Also, do not hold your breath for the what happens when you skip someone question. That is never discussed. A rare break in the formula.

Peter gives Dennis the full 411 on death’s plan. Dennis thinks he’s full of shit. And once again calls the detective to let him know Peter is threatening people. Peter needs to get it together. Spoiler alert, he will not.

Nathan and Roy are arguing in the factory again. Not the best place for a conversation, probably, but here we are. Nathan notices that a rogue hook is coming toward them. He tries to get Roy to move, but inadvertently pushes him into the hook as it falls. Roy dies when the hook spears through his face. When the rest of the survivors arrive, Peter insists Nathan must have killed him, thus taking his life. Dennis is the last to show up, but death is on a war path now and before he can ask questions, it flings a wrench, mostly, through his face.

Sam, despite all the deaths he’s seen today, is going to work at the cafe. He invites Molly to join him for a romantic dinner afterward. Oh, and uh he works at Cafe Miro 81, ya know the sign that killed Carter in Final Destination 1. Good omens surely. He sees signs of doom everywhere in the kitchen, probably because kitchens are scary and dangerous, but he ultimately survives his shift.

The detective is staking out the cafe where the couple is enjoying a little date. Sam tells Molly he took the French internship and invites her to join him. They’re trying to celebrate when Peter rudely interrupts them. He has been thinking about murder. He thinks he can totally kill someone, but it needs to be someone who deserves it. And clearly that someone is Molly. She survived the bridge thing and that makes her evil incarnate to Peter.

So now we are in a full on villain fight, which is new. It’s always been death after us, but it’s nice to mix it up. Peter tries to shoot Molly. The detective outside hears this, but it will be far too long before he shoes up. Instead, Sam and Peter fight in the kitchen. Peter turns on literally everything he can find, just for the plot. Sam gets knocked out.

The detective finds Molly just in time to be shot by Peter. Molly begs him to leave now that he has the cop’s life, but he doesn’t fancy going to prison for his murder so he’s gonna kill Molly and Sam, anyway. The three fight. Sam eventually gets the upper hand, spearing Peter with a rotisserie chicken stick (real name unknown).

Since Sam obviously knows he has Peter’s extra life via the detective. Everyone is saved!

Two weeks later, Sam and Molly board a plane to France. There’s a crazy fight and kids are being dragged off the plane. Those of us in the know will recognize them FROM THE FIRST MOVIE! OH YEA LEMONS! Final Destination 5 IS A PREQUEL! They are on Flight 180. Sam doesn’t know those guys, so he sits down. He overhears a flight attendant tell another passenger that they were taken off because some dumbass kid had a vision. Sam knows what’s about to happen now, but it’s too late. The plane explodes as we all knew it would, and Sam and Molly die.

We look on at our last survivor, Nathan. He is attending the memorial for Roy. It’s at a local bar. One of Roy’s friends tells him it isn’t so bad that Roy died since he had an aneurysm that would have burst any day now. Wreckage from the plane falls through the ceiling and crushes Nathan.

And that, my dear friends and lemons, is the end of Final Destination as of this writing. Keep a lookout for the breakdown of Final Destination: Bloodlines after release day next weekend.

Which one is your favorite? I’m partial to the first 2 myself, but the gymnastics death is one of my favorite.