Final Destination 5 2011

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: It's a slack but competently executed film of a script with butterknife-dull dialogue and actors cast because of their "type." Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Under the direction of James Cameron protege Steven Quayle, the visual effects from Ariel Velasco Shaw (who has crafted mayhem on everything from 300 to Freddy vs. Jason) ensure that no industrial hook through a skull is left unimagined. Read more

Kathleen Murphy, MSN Movies: When stuff that serves us turns deadly, we're in a world of hallucinatory hurt. FD5 occasionally generates that kind of frisson, but it never goes bone-deep. Read more

Mike Hale, New York Times: A new wrinkle in how the killings spool out actually makes the film even more predictable, and the deaths, which tend to be squirmy rather than explosive, are so perfunctory and lazily jokey that they leave a decidedly bad aftertaste. Read more

Scott Bowles, USA Today: The Godfather II it isn't, but for teens with money to burn, there are worse options to curdle blood. Read more

Tasha Robinson, AV Club: Who needs a creative storyline or meaningful connections when you can just string some shocking images together? Read more

John DeFore, Washington Post: The script and acting satisfy the genre's requirements by being thoroughly forgettable. Read more

Tom Russo, Boston Globe: Stabs at the dramatic don't amount to anything that makes us care, even for Bell, who has been solid on AMC's The Walking Dead and in the chairlift chiller Frozen. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: I'd rather see a documentary about the peaceable, versatile uses of WD-40, but you know teenagers. Read more

Gary Dowell, Dallas Morning News: An anemic installment in the decade-old series that seems content with giving viewers more of the same. Read more

Eric D. Snider, Film.com: The death sequences are fun; unfortunately, nearly everything in between is tedious and mechanical. Read more

Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter: To borrow from TV terminology, the series hasn't jumped the shark yet, but the strain of inventing bizarre deaths is beginning to show. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: "FD 5" did not raise even a single goose bump - which for a movie that bills itself as horror is not a good thing. Read more

Bruce Diones, New Yorker: A surprising infusion of energy and macabre humor reanimates this horror franchise. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: A long and eventually tedious series of deaths, all in slightly sickening 3-D. Splattered eyeballs, snapped spines, heart kebabs - one numbingly after another, in diamond-hard focus and ruby-red color. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: First-time feature director Steven Quale has brought this anemic franchise back to life, with an unexpected infusion of humor and energy. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: A suspenseful and macabre exercise in dread for the absurdly cosseted. Read more

Tirdad Derakhshani, Philadelphia Inquirer: I'd venture to say it's the best Final Destination sequel - if you gauge success by overall shock value. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: From the opening credits to the final kill this film displays a great use of 3-D. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: I expect this movie to make a lot of money at the box office, spent by fans eager to see still more cool ways for hot young characters to be slaughtered. My review will not be read by any of these people. They know what they enjoy. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Final Destination 5 starts with an R-rated 3D bang, but the cheap thrills wear off way fast, and we're left with atrocious acting, feeble writing and clueless directing. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: "Final Destination 5" is irresistible, and the reason it's irresistible is that it speaks to us in the language we all understand, which is fear. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Director Steven Quale stages the death scenes with intermittently effective black humour to juice up a premise that, essentially, has all the suspense of watching the line at an abattoir. Read more

Jordan Riefe, TheWrap: Read more

Nigel Floyd, Time Out: It sticks to gimmicky scenes in which twentysomethings are dispatched in ingenious ways, but first-time director Steven Quayle delivers cheap fun that will keep fans happy. Read more

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star: Stick a fork in the Final Destination franchise - probably something that's been done in some variation to a poor slob in every one of the ongoing series. It's done. Read more

Joe Leydon, Variety: Constrained by a formula as restrictive as the elements that define haiku or iambic pentameter, scripter Eric Heisserer and first-time feature helmer Steven Quale nevertheless generate a respectable amount of suspense in Final Destination 5. Read more

Aaron Hillis, Village Voice: So tapped into its audience's giddy schadenfreude that beyond a kinkier-than-usual jolt of black humor and some clever red herrings, the formula remains rote... Read more