'Final Destination Bloodlines' Review
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Permit me a story, if I may. I highly enjoy the Final Destination movies. One year in college for my birthday, I went to my girlfriend, now wife’s, house to watch a movie with her. I brought along the original Wicker Man and the original Final Destination. We ultimately decided to watch the latter. Now, my wife is no lover of horror films in general, but when we finished, she told me that she loved it. I then asked her if she wanted to watch the second one. We did. She loved it. I then asked if she wanted to watch the next one. We did. She loved it. By that point, it was one or two in the morning, so we called it a night. A few months later, we finally got around to the next film. The movie ended, and we turned to each other and agreed that it was awful and we loved it. Then we finished the fifth one, and thus, Final Destination is a series that is near and dear to the hearts of both of us. So, naturally, when the sixth film came out, there was no way that I could miss it.
I’m glad I didn’t, and I’m glad that I was in a packed theater. The film was worth the wait.
Final Destination Bloodlines has all of what you’d expect in a film, and several things you wouldn’t. It would have been very easy to follow the series’ framework exactly, but it tries new things and is better for it. The movies have never really been story-heavy, and that doesn’t change too much here. The filmmakers of every film know that you’re not here for a rich, engaging, thought-provoking film with lots to say and think about. The story is just there to move from one kill to the next. Bloodlines is the same in many ways, but it adds enough fun twists and turns that you genuinely don’t know where the film is going next.
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The characters are also something that has never been a strong suit of the series. Outside of the main character and maybe their love interest, the rest of them are there to die in deliciously gruesome ways, and tend to be pretty one-note as a result. It makes sense. Why bother giving a character a ton of depth and nuance if you’re just going to annihilate them with a cherry picker in two seconds? This film actually tries to buck that trend a little bit.
I found myself caring about whether or not specific characters would live or die for the most part, because the film tried to add, if not depth, then at least a meaningful connection with other characters that you believe and get invested in. Outside of the previous protagonists and their love interests, that’s not something the series has ever really tried to do. Again, they have 90 minutes to kill several people in creative ways. The added character moments were a big reason that this is by far the longest film in the series, clocking in at 110 minutes. However, the film didn’t drag on, and I never felt the need to check the time.
But enough about the story and characters. There’s only one thing that brings most people to a Final Destination movie: the deaths. Were they devilishly fun with creative Rube Goldberg dominoes that led to much blood and death? Yeah, for the most part. Would I count any of them as top in the franchise? No, definitely not, and that’s for one big reason: too much CGI. A distracting amount. Sure, the series has used its fair share of CGI for the kills before, but usually to enhance a death instead of creating it. If you watch a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff (or Dead Meat’s excellent kill counts of the series), you can see all of the practical work that went into the previous deaths.
Here, even basic deaths that could have been done well in practical effects were instead created with CGI that would have looked bad twenty years ago. One could say that it’s just a Final Destination film, but again, most of the kills for the first five movies had a lot of practical effects. This time they rely far too heavily on computers to add the gore, and it turns what is built up as a really fun, inventive kill into something that takes you out of the movie a little bit, and the deaths of all things shouldn’t be what take you out of a Final Destination movie. Some of them couldn’t have been done any other way, but by that token, if you think of a death that can only be done in CGI, maybe tweak it a bit so that you can get some good practical work in there. Even if the practical effect isn’t flawless, audiences are far more forgiving of a mediocre practical effect than a mediocre CGI one. CGI aside, the kills are on the whole still really fun and creative, and it’s as awesome as ever to try to figure out what’s going to happen.
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The movie also relies far more on humor than the previous entries, which was a bold risk. If it were put in unnaturally, it would have lessened the movie. However, the risk more than paid off. It had plenty of moments that had the whole theater laughing, and none of them felt forced or out of place. Well done.
As a final note, we must discuss the series MVP: Tony Todd. He had terminal stomach cancer during filming, and it definitely shows. However, Tony Todd still gives his final performance all he has, and any future films will certainly miss him; he had the best exit that the series could have given him. The director let Todd improvise his final lines, and he gave us not only a beautiful farewell to the series, but to the fans as well. It makes you realize how awesome he was, and how we as fans really didn’t deserve him. Rest in peace, Mr. Todd. You may be gone, but your legend will never be.
Overall, the film is highly enjoyable. The performances are solid, the characters are better than in years past, though I can’t see any of them being as iconic, and the kills are still fun. If they had relied more on practical effects instead of CGI, it would have improved the film even more, but that aside, I had a blast in the theater, and can’t wait to watch it again with my wife. Check it out if you’re a Final Destination fan. It’s well worth your time.
Rating: 8/10
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