The Final Destination franchise is one of those ‘love it or hate it’ types of things. I did an epic review of all of the Final Destination movies recently, and I liked the first one, but then it started to drag out. Bloodlines is the newest movie in the series.
Speaking of dragging out, I was dragged out by a friend to see this over the weekend and well, here’s my review. When I hear the word ‘franchise’, I do tend to zone out a bit. Most of the time, they just carry on and on, and this is how I feel about the Final Destination movies. I’m going in a little prejudice to start with.
Final Destination: Bloodline stars Gabrielle Rose, Richard Harmon, Brec Bassinger, Max Lloyd-Jones, Rya Kihlsedt, Brenna Llewellyn, April Telek and Tony Todd. This was Todd’s last movie, which left me feeling mixed.
The Story
This movie takes a mildly different take on the usual ‘I saw us all die, I’ll stop it, but we still all die’ take.
Plagued by a recurring violent nightmare, a college student returns home to find the one person who can break the cycle and save her family from the horrific fate that inevitably awaits them.
We start in the 1960s (I think), and a couple of young people are going to a new restaurant, atop a Sky Needle-type building. All the way to the build, and up it, Iris (Brec Bassinger) was having the usual premonitions.
I don’t like directors who patronise the audience. If we see a cat, it has to meow; if there’s a dog, it has to bark. There’s a truck driving past, it has to honk its horn, like truck drivers go around honking their horns the entire journey.
Unfortunately for me, Final Destination: Bloodlines is nothing but patronising shots of what’s going to kill someone. Oh no, there’s a nail sticking dangerously out of the ground…I hope no one treads on that later.
A good 60 – 70% of this movie is about seeing what’s going to kill someone and then them getting killed by said thing. The rest of the story is about Iris’ granddaughter, Stefani (Santa Juana), having nightmares about her gran.
For some reason, in Bloodlines, when Iris stopped the opening kills, it took about 50 years to catch up. It might have explained why, but I missed it. Mainly because I was focused too much on the close-ups of what was going to kill people.
Iris’ family are all in danger and Stefani has to try and work out why and how to stop it. Like with all the other movies, she does/doesn’t. I won’t spoil who dies, because I didn’t really care or remember their names.
The Kills
As with the Saw franchise, Final Destination is all about the kills. I might be mellowing in my old age, but I found most of them over the top. There’s too much CG and fake blood and guts, and I just wasn’t entertained.
The original movie was a good idea; you escape death, but you can’t escape in the long run. Bloodlines is the sixth in the franchise, and, for me, they are just churning out the same old thing: a group of people escape death, then die in a horrible way. Wash, rinse, repeat.
The kills are all predictable, as I said, it’s all set up so you know what’s going to happen. There are some fake outs, but it’s mostly it’s as you expect. As I said, it’s now the Saw franchise.
The Cast
There’s nothing to write home about with the cast, they are all ‘perfectly fine’, but forgettable. The only person to mention was Todd.
Todd is a legend, I’m going to say that, he’s a master of horror, and it was a sad loss to see him pass away. In this movie, he looks ill, which again is sad. There is a plot twist in his story, which I just rolled my eyes at.
Todd’s final scene is nice, though, he says, about knowing when the end is close. He mentions living life to the full and then leaves. It was a touching moment, but it was a shame it was in this movie.
Idiocracy
On going off on one about Final Destination: Bloodlines, but for a reason. You remember the movie Idiocracy? The idea with everyone in the future is dumb, and Terry Crews is president. Movies like Bloodlines are why we can’t have decent movies any more, hear me out.
Final Destination: Bloodlines is another one in the franchise, and the story is the same. As I said, there’s a mild twist on this one, but they are all the same. As long as there are cool deaths, no one cares about the story.
It seems like this new movie has done really well at the box office, and people are flocking to it. Why? I have no idea, I’m the kind of person that likes to see something new, something original, not just another spin-off, prequel or reboot.
As long as people carry on watching movies like Bloodlines, the more they will make. It’s easy money, just film people dying, spread a little story in there, and we have a movie! It’s money that could be spent on something new.
Audiences today need to have everything spelt out, no surprises and just show me some juicy kills…YEAH! Entertainment is going to get a lot worse before it gets any better. Rant over.
Overall
If you like the original Final Destination movies, you’ll probably like this one. Personally, I’m bored with them, it’s the same old, same old. I didn’t see anything original; everything was patronisingly laid out, for all the stupid members of the audience.
When they make a new one, I won’t bother wasting my time with it, it’s just flogging a dead horse that this point. You might think differently.
Final Destination: Bloodlines gets half a star from me, it’s just not my cuppa tea anymore, let the franchise die. It’s still in the cinema, but I would say wait for streaming, or for it to be on TV.
