FINAL DESTINATION 5

CONTAINS SPOILERS UNLESS YOU'VE SEEN THE OTHER FINAL DESTINATIONS, IN WHICH CASE YOU'LL BE MILES AHEAD OF THE CURVE

Much as you know exactly where you are with a vintage Friday The 13th, you know exactly what you're getting with a Final Destination movie. Just like the previous sequels, this is pretty much an identical restaging of the saga in which a group of people cheat Death purely by chance, but Death has to balance the books as takes out the accidental survivors in turn, in gloriously sadistic and hilariously convoluted ways. Death is not satisfied by a mere heart attack or a random gunshot: far more likely that you'll drop your toast butterside down, tread on it and as your feet go from under you, your hand collides with the edge of the wobbly knife rack and a cleaver slides out and hits you in the face, blade first.

The disaster in Final Destination 5 is the spectacular collapse of a suspension bridge - the official report eventually cites the cause as high winds during construction work - but seen in a vision by one hapless employee of a paper supplies company in which he and seven of his colleagues are violently killed. Managing to get them to safety, he discovers that Death will not be outsmarted and the survivors begin dying in outrageous ways. Or, is there a way to cheat the Reaper of his due souls after all?

There are times when you want subtlety, wit and solid, well-crafted film making. There are other times when you just want to see annoying people wiped out and it's enormous fun: the Final Destinations have put the laughter in slaughter over the years and they don't disappoint here - the gymnastics sequence is a genuine work of genius in the way an ordinary sports arena - or a kitchen, a factory floor, an eye clinic or a massage parlour is turned into a series of deathtraps just waiting to detonate and you'll never guess which one is actually going to kill them.

The 3D perhaps isn't necessary but it works perfectly well (I saw it in Dolby 3D which I think has the edge on Real 3D) and there are a dozen or more truly wincetastic moments in there. It's certainly an improvement on 4 and 3, although perhaps not up there with number 2 which I think is my personal favourite. And the climactic twist is extremely well done. These are reprehensible movies, perhaps, but they're great fun in the worst of taste and I enjoyed FD5 immensely.

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