Final Destination: Bloodlines

If you are going into this movie just to have a good time and turn your brain off then you'll enjoy this film. However, as someone who became obsessed with the Final Destination franchise nearly 2 decades ago after watching the choose your own fate edition of Final Destination 3 with the tanning bed scene permanently seared into my brain, I'm a bit more harsh.

Cons:

• The CGI blood and kills. Nothing takes me out of a scene more than dark red cartoon blood. With a film that is built PRIMARILY on deaths it should be quite limited on the usage of CGI. We've seen great use of practical effects which is why this feels like such wasted potential. The biggest reason these movies work is because no matter how ridiculous the set up is the death still feels real (4th sequel excluded). It doesn't have the same effect if the person dying sudden looks like an animated character.

• This might be the most useless protagonist since the 4th installment. The main character might be the blandest character in the whole movie, and she has some tough competition because only 3 people stand out in this movie. I can forgive throw away characters if the deaths are memorable but both are lacking here.

• There have been rumors that there were reshoots and I believe them because the final act has some pacing issues and ends somewhat abruptly.

Pros:

• I will say that this film had the 2nd best opening scene/disaster behind the pile up.

• Tony Todd's goodbye was moving and possibly the best dialogue he has given in the franchise.

• The hospital death scene involving an MRI machine has a great build up of suspense and emotion and is up there with other iconic final destination death scenes.

• While there is more cons then pros for me I still had a good time and still fun to see in theaters. While some FD sequels miss the mark there is always another sequel that can surpass it. Can't wait for the next sequels!!

The return of the series after 14 years should not have been like this. It honestly felt like I was watching a gory Disney Channel Original Movie. The tone was way too childish. If it weren't for the gore, I'm sure it would have been rated PG-13 because the dialogue wasn't mature at all. I would have preferred a darker and more serious tone like in the first two movies.

One of the things that bothered me the most was the way they handled Bludworth. In the previous films, he was a mysterious character who seemed to have a supernatural connection to death. In Bloodlines, he's reduced to just an ordinary guy. I'm pretty sure this wasn't the original vision for the character. It felt like they rushed to close his arc because the actor is reportedly sick and may not return in future installments. The Bludworth we see in this film doesn't align with the enigmatic presence we knew. The man who used to deliver eerie, metaphorical warnings now feels completely humanized and bland.

The Final Destination series has never been fully consistent in its lore, but it's 2025. If you're bringing a franchise like this back, you need to be more coherent and deliberate. The final train crash should have been Stefani's premonition. All the other films start with something like a finger cut cut. Or maybe Charlie should have had the vision at the prom. The CGI in the final scene was awful. It looked like something out of Spy Kids.

On the bright side, I did appreciate the emotional approach of focusing on a family rather than a group of classmates or coworkers for once. It helped the audience connect more deeply with the characters. I really liked Iris and thought Brec Bassinger did a great job. The Skyview Tower collapse, while not visually perfect, ranks among my top three openings in the franchise.

The hospital sequence was by far the best part of the movie. The MRI death easily enters my top five deaths across all the films. I also liked how complex the death order was this time. The butterfly effect was depicted pretty well.

Overall, the movie was watchable but fell short of my expectations. A more serious and darker tone would have been a better fit. Honestly, if the whole film had taken place in the 1960s and followed Iris and the diner characters, it might have turned out better. But the most important thing is this franchise needs to be taken out of Zach and Adam's hands. They are turning it into a kids movie with gore.

Not bad at all. It makes the most logically-connected sense out of all the FD series. But... Realism? Way less now. Personally, it's still between "mid" to the "quite good" level. The FD series have always stood out in the category of horror. This movie still has some questionable scenes that leaves me with slight curiosity on how some of the occurences could be avoided, but it didn't disappoint me. The casting is wonderful and so is the acting. Plus, this one's highly supernatural and not as gory as the others in terms of screen time. A lot relies on the sound/music, and angles. I watched it in Premiere so I got the benefit of the sound system's work. The special effects and lighting quality made every scene look realistic in portrayal. What impressed me is that this is one of those moderate-comeback horror thrillers that's categorized as supernatural but isn't involving a visible entity or character. These kinds of movies stand out to me. And I'm overall impressed by the tense moments FD is able to exhibit. Also, this is my first review on IMDb!

Final Destination: Bloodlines isn't going to pull a rabbit out of its undead hat, reinvent the horror wheel, or stake its claim as a genre-defining masterstroke-but that's not the point.

What it does do is breathe new life into a franchise that felt like it had run out of steam. Bloodlines is a solid sixth installment, packing the same patented "inevitable death" mechanics we know and (occasionally) love, but with enough fresh twists to keep die-hard fans from checking out.

If you never warmed to the idea of "death's design" calling the shots, this won't convert you. For everyone else, the film delivers brilliantly choreographed set pieces of grisly demise-think elaborate Rube Goldberg traps drenched in splatter FX-that hit the sweet spot between macabre creativity and good old-fashioned gore.

The biggest upgrade this time around is emotional buy-in: the victims aren't a bunch of arbitrary strangers thrown together by fate. Instead, Bloodlines builds sincere rapport with its core ensemble, giving each death a bit more narrative weight (and, yes, a smidge of pathos) before the inevitable payoff.

Unfortunately, the dialogue remains as thin as ever-flat exposition one moment, telenovela melodrama the next-reminding you that subtlety wasn't high on the call sheet.

On the plus side, the movie leavens the carnage with genuinely funny, ironically staged moments-many courtesy of Erik, whose over-the-top flair steals scenes from our so-called protagonist-and the delightfully absurd chain reactions (who knew the garbage truck could be such a menace?).

Even though the film trudges into its predictable finale with all the subtlety of a wrecking ball, Bloodlines is pure adrenaline: brutal, energetic, and darkly comedic. In other words, exactly what you paid for when you bought that Final Destination ticket.

It's crazy to me to think that the last time a 'Final Destination' movie came out I was a young 20 year old man full of hopes and dreams. And the title of the fourth film in the series, 'The Final Destination', implied it would be the final instalment of the series back in 2009, however anyone familiar with modern Hollywood probably knew that was unlikely to remain the case - and it lasted 2 years.

When you make an instalment 14 years after the last, there's probably a sense that you have to do something a little different in order to justify it. And this film does mix the formula up - slightly. Just enough that it feels a little different, but not enough that it really alters the formula we have come to know and love.

The opening scene in this movie was really good. It was lengthy, fairly creative and had some great individual kills in the mix. From there thing go into a lull for a while, allowing the story to set itself up. Then the film goes bananas the rest of the way and we are treated to brilliant kill scene after brilliant kill scene. There are some really good ones in this film.

One thing that was a problem here - and something that has plagued the series in almost every film - is that it is riddled with unlikable characters. I can only think that's being done intentionally at this point to make people feel disposable and like no one is safe, but I can't help but feel the films would be slightly more impactful if the characters were a bit more likable overall.

All in all though I would say 'Final Destination: Bloodlines' was a lot better than it had any right to be 25 years after the original. 8/10.