Final Destination Bloodlines is Too Good

I'm a big proponent of comeback stories. If you happen to be a fan of the Final Destination franchise who has also read my reviews of the earlier movies, then I can imagine that I'm probably not your favorite person. I don't have a history of being very nice to Final Destination; what I was instead was matter-of-fact and maybe a little bit clinical. Quality-wise, this series has one of the worst track records I've ever seen for a major IP, though the reason I started watching it was that I had heard good things about the newest entry, Final Destination Bloodlines, and wanted to watch it for myself. In a weird way, I'm sort of glad I sat through five lesser variations of the same thing, because Bloodlines, the sixth installment, is one of the most dramatic and wholesale quality turnarounds I've ever experienced in a franchise. It is meditative when everything that came before was neglectful, emotionally honest rather than stereotypically brash, and contemplatively empathetic instead of glibly dismissive. This is a well-executed movie working with a clearly thoughtful screenplay.

The premise of Bloodlines is refreshing, but it will also be perfectly accessible if you're at all familiar with the franchise. Fifty-six years ago, Iris Campbell saw the collapse of a high-rise restaurant in her mind's eye before it actually happened. She acted and saved dozens - if not hundreds - of people who were never meant to be saved. However, death doesn't like having his plan foiled, and so now, he's systematically killing all of Iris's grandchildren, none of whom were supposed to be born in the first place. We know how Final Destination works by now, and Bloodlines knows that we know how it works. This movie is peppered with subtle, darkly funny jokes about the various impending disasters that we know are coming, and it can be grimly funny at times, in a good way. The occasional and subtle foreshadowing of danger in this movie is one of my favorite aspects of it - it's so impressive that it's sometimes a little amusing.

Final Destination isn't exactly known for its complex characterization or great acting, but the performances in Bloodlines are head and shoulders above any other movie in this franchise. The characters here seem completely natural and believable, nothing like the shallow walking stereotypes that plagued earlier installments. Bloodlines finds genuine emotional depth and intimacy to the point where I found myself becoming misty-eyed at some of the subtler character beats, even early on in its runtime. Final Destination hasn't exactly set a good example of how to write characters in the past, but it's fitting that here, at the end, right at death's door, it would take the time to truly ponder the weight of life.

More concretely, Bloodlines is precisely what it sounds like - the familiar Final Destination curse, but this time passed down via blood. Grandma Iris is the black sheep of the family, and she saw and experienced some things when she was younger that no one should have to see or experience. Iris is spoken of many times before we even see her at all - not in a positive light - and I appreciate how hard this movie works to make this woman interesting, because she certainly is that: an intriguing woman who makes a compelling and well-realized point. Whoever put together the lineage-based premise of this movie paid meticulous attention to detail. The reasons why death is stalking the descendants of people who were never supposed to die are startlingly detailed, intelligent, and put-together. Bloodlines contains an attention to detail that, up until now, we haven't seen in the Final Destination series. It's not close, either. This movie even plays off of our expectations to mislead us in some fun, creative, and self-aware ways. Not only does it improve dramatically on the things that didn't work about this series in the past, but Bloodlines also puts the things that did work to incredible use. It's not just a great Final Destination movie. Bloodlines is a great movie by any metric.

For the first time, Final Destination seems genuinely to care about the feelings of all its characters, and it excels because of that true and heartfelt empathy. While it would have benefited from an additional twenty minutes of runtime to expand on some of its fascinating ideas, Bloodlines takes its rightful place as the best Final Destination movie by far. It is the first of its kind to actually have something of value to say about life and death, and while a big part of me wonders why it took so long for the franchise to get here, I'm nevertheless glad it did. Color me shocked.

Final Destination Bloodlines - 9/10

Galatians 3:12-14