FINAL DESTINATION 5 IS A PREQUEL. Aw shit, I shoulda prefaced that with a SPOILER ALERT! Yeah, that's the big reveal at the end of this thing: It's a prequel! Who cares, you say? Exactly.

In a desperate bid to create some sort of Final Destination franchise mythology, the end scene of Final Destination Five shows a pointed shot of the date—the year 2000—on a plane ticket in the hot little hands of our two coach-class-sitting heroes, leaving the audience to wonder, "Wait—I thought it was 2001 I wasn't supposed to forget, right?" Then, because the makers of Final Destination 5 realize that no one has any clue why we're supposed to find this year meaningful, we're treated to a montage of death scenes from the previous four movies. "Oooooh, I get it. This is a prequel to the decent original flick from 2000, which saw a group of kids bound for Paris get off their plane at the last minute, only to see the plane crash on takeoff." Nice try, makers of Final Destination 5! Also, your fingernails are bleeding from scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Let's wander down memory lane, because perhaps you, like me, need a refresher on this horror franchise that sees a group of D-grade actors narrowly escape fate only to have Death hunt them down and kill them in gory and contrived ways.

FD1: Near death by plane crash.

FD2: Near death by car crash.

FD3: Near death by roller coaster.

FD4: Near death by chocolate. (Ha, gotcha! I meant, "Near death by NASCAR tragedy.")

FD5: Near death by bridge collapse.

The varied means that Death has eked out his revenge on fate-dodging teenagers in previous Final Destinations has been what one might call... creative. Means of teenage destruction have included the following blunt instruments: shower, elevator, barbed wire, BBQ, pigeons, SO MANY falling objects, tanning bed, weight machine, nail gun, pool pump—and, in this installment, a body-bending gymnastic fall, Lasik eye surgery, death by acupuncture, shish kabob through the gut, I'm forgetting one (maybe something fell and squished some dude?), and finally, back to where it all began, with a fiery plane crash. And that's where the loop closes on this formulaic chapter in teen squishings.

Also, don't bother with the 3D. There's really no wow factor to watching a bunch of teapots, rebar, glass shards, and salamis (at least, I think they were salamis?) fly at your face.