Producers: Craig Perry, Sheila Hanahan Taylor, Jon Watts, Dianne McGunigle and Toby Emmerich   Directors: Adam Stein and Zach Lipovsky   Screenplay: Guy Busick and Lori Evans Taylor   Cast: Kaitlyn Santa Juana, Teo Briones, Richard Harmon, Owen Patrick Joyner, Anna Lore, Rya Kihlstedt, Alex Zahara,  Brec Bassinger, Gabrielle Rose, Max Lloyd-Jones, Tinpo Lee, April Telek, Jayden Oniah, Natasha Burnett, Bernard Cuffling, Travis Turner, Noah Bromley, Brenna Llewellyn and Tony Todd   Distributor: New Line/Warner Bros.

Grade: B-

It’s never a good idea to get emotionally invested in any of the characters in a “Final Destination” movie, since pretty much all of them are marked for death.  But for the makers of the franchise it’s proven a profitable financial investment indeed, encompassing five solidly-grossing entries between 2000 and 2011 before being put on hiatus until now.

“Bloodlines” represents a tweaking of the series’ premise to add plenty of potential new victims beyond those who have actually “cheated” death by escaping some mass casualty event through a premonition of the upcoming disaster.  The addendum is that all those biologically descended from the escapees become targets of the Grim Reaper too, to be dealt with seriatim, according to the order in which their ancestors would have perished, and always in the gruesomely inventive fashions that have become de rigueur according to the established formula.

The movie begins with a spectacular set piece that depicts the disaster that never happened, which would have been caused by a literal bad penny.  The locale is an observation-deck restaurant perched atop a tall tower in some unidentified city in the late sixties.  Iris (Brec Bassinger) is surprised when her beau Paul Campbell (Mac Lloyd-Jones) squires her to its opening night, and though the snooty maitre’d (Bernard Cuffling) refuses to recognize their reservation, the couple has a pretty good time, especially since Paul takes the occasion to propose.

Unfortunately an obnoxious kid (Noah Bromley) intends to drop a penny he swiped from the place’s fountain off the tower even though a guard has told him not to.  When the boy ignores him, Iris takes the coin away, but during their struggle it’s thrown into the machinery that keeps the restaurant operational, with potentially catastrophic results that Iris foresees and warns the crowd about—ineffectually.  We watch the collapse of the structure, with fire engulfing the place as people try to escape, some falling to their deaths below.  (One in a series of clever needle drops is inserted as the valet parkers run from bodies crashing onto the pavement.)  The obnoxious penny-throwing kid meets an especially satisfying fate.

In reality, though, Iris’ announcement led to a panicked evacuation that averted what we’ve just seen.  But, as the franchise has taught us, death will not allow such a harvest of souls to be stolen from him.  He begins to stalk not only those who would have died in the order in which they would have met their demises, but their offspring and grandkids before moving on to the next victim. 

We come to know this because college student Stefani Reyes (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) is terrified by a recurrent nightmare of Iris’ vision, which she begins to investigate. To do that, she has to find out about her maternal grandmother Iris Campbell, but her father Marty (Tinpo Lee) warns her against it, and her younger brother Charlie (Teo Briones) is dismissive; both are still angry that Marty’s wife Darlene (Rya Kihlstedt), Iris’ daughter, had abandoned the family years before.  Stefani nonetheless approaches her uncle Howard (Alex Zahara), Darlene’s older brother, for information, and though he’s unresponsive, his wife Brenda (April Telek) gives her a lead to Iris’ whereabouts, a monstrous death-proofed enclave where the old woman has lived for years, assiduously collecting data about the myriad others who’d been at the Sky View with her and have perished over the years, along with their children, from oldest to youngest, and grandchildren, also by age. 

Stefani is initially creeped out by Iris, but comes to believe her ravings as a result of what happens to Iris when she ventures outside her sanctuary, and then the tragedy that befalls her first-born, Howard.  Thus begins the series of imaginatively gruesome deaths in the family devised by writers Guy Busick and Lori Evans Taylor and staged with panache by directors Adam Stein and Zach Lipovsky (with considerable help from their effects crew and prosthetics department, of course).  Stefani’s aim is to find a way to save her cousins Erik (Richard Harmon), Bobby (Owen Patrick Joyner) and Julia (Anna Lore), as well as her mother, who returns for Iris’ funeral, as well as herself and Charlie.  But that proves easier said than done; even a visit to William Bludworth (Tony Todd), the grown-up version of the young boy (Jayden Oniah) Iris had rescued in her premonition who’s somehow managed to survive to old age, suggests only a couple of ways out.

The premise behind the “Final Destination” franchise was always a good one; the idea of an unseen death force exhibiting cleverness and a grim sense of humor in effecting the deaths of his chosen ones carries a nasty charge, and even when the writers of some earlier installments failed to employ it to best advantage it continued to resonate.  Busick and Taylor toy with it expertly—a backyard barbecue sequence is filled with cheeky feints before the axe falls, and a couple of twists regarding the Campbell cousins (as well as more spot-on needle drops added to Tim Wynn’s score) adds to the outrageously jokey tone.  The return of the penny at the close is also a nifty touch. 

To be sure, the acting is variable, ranging from adequate to amateurish, but given the fact that this is just a mid-level picture in budgetary terms, the directors, production designer Rachel O’Toole, cinematographer Christian Sebaldt, editor Sabrina Pine and the effects and makeup teams have succeeded in making it look a more expensive product than it actually is; that opening atop the Sky View is actually pretty stunning, an improvement on the similar one in the recent “Drop,” and another big disaster at the close is an effective capper.   And, of course, it’s a bonus to have a valedictory turn by Todd, a veteran of the franchise, who looks very ill but uses that physical infirmity to deepen his cameo.

No “Final Destination” movie is ever going to be a deep cinematic masterpiece about death; if that’s what you’re after, search out “The Seventh Seal.”  But this is the cream of the crop in a generally disreputable genre, and even viewers who usually avoid such gory-but-funny death flicks (which, after all, are basically exercises in sadism) might find it worth taking a chance on. 

And may one suggest that if another installment is in order, could we see what actually befalls that nasty penny-pitching boy and his descendants?     

Producers: Basil Iwanyk, Erica Lee, Chris Milburn and Tai Duncan  Director: James Madigan   Screenplay: Brooks McLaren and DJ Cotrona   Cast: Josh Hartnett, Charithra Chandran, Marko Zaror, Juju Chan Szeto,  Julian Kostov, Sanjeev Kohli, Declan Baxter, Hugh O’Donnell, Danny Ashok, Heather Choo, Claudia Heinz and Katee Sackhoff   Distributor: Vertical Entertainment

Grade: B-

A live-action cartoon that situates a wacked-out John Wickish plot aboard a passenger jet, “Fight or Flight” is grossly over-the-top but will serve as a comic action bloodbath for those who enjoy that sort of thing, especially since it’s energized by an utterly unhinged performance from Josh Hartnett, who boasts bleach-blond hair as well as a goofy grin and zero reluctance to look silly.

The movie begins with a slow-mo melee aboard the plane set to the strains of the Blue Danube—Kubrick, anyone?—which proves to be one of those flash-forwards movies are so fond of nowadays; we’ll get a lot more of the mayhem later.

For now we’re introduced to Lucas Reyes (Hartnett), a seedy ex-government agent who’s been living a thoroughly dissolute life in Bangkok after a mission gone bad.  Dressed in a horrible Hawaiian shirt, belting back bottle after bottle and on the run from dangerous debt collectors, he’s astonished to get a call from Katherine Brunt (Katee Sackhoff), his former boss and squeeze, who offers him a job that can earn him professional rehabilitation and scads of money.  He’s to track down, and bring in, a super hacker known only as The Ghost, who’s just ripped off a Thai corporation but been wounded in the process.  Since the thief uses a cloaking device, even the security footage is just a blur, but intelligence has identified the flight that The Ghost is about to take out of the country.  Seeing a chance to escape his problems, Lucas hops aboard.

But word of The Ghost’s itinerary has gotten out, and there are parties who want the troublemaker terminated rather than brought in, and have offered bounties to that end.  So the plane is filled with snakes of a human sort—in Wickian terms, greedy hit-people.  Lucas gets his first taste of that when he’s seated beside Cayenne (funny Marko Zaror), a talkative, hyperactive guy who drugs him and then escorts him to the restroom for permanent disposal.  Groggy Lucas is himself surprised that he survives the encounter, which turns out to be but the first—though one of the best—of such potentially fatal meetings.  Another notable one has Lucas fighting while under the influence of psychedelics, which allows for director James Madigan and his team—production designer Mailara Santana Pomales, cinematographer Matt Flannery, editor Ben Mills, the stunt team and some animators—to go into full cartoon mode while a glassy-eyed, grinning Harnett and his opponents do hand-to-hand battle, though weapons like chainsaws are optional.  Composer Paul Saunderson adds to the visual wildness with his score, complemented at times by some raucous needle drops.

The Ghost’s identity is revealed fairly early on, but since it turns out that the hacker’s motivations are pure—unlikely those of the various powers aiming to snuff the thief out (and, as it happens, those who have given Lucas his mission)—their joint survival becomes imperative.  And in the process of staying alive, Lucas secures a few allies, including pretty flight attendant Isha (likable Charithra Chandran) and her nervous colleague Royce (Danny Ashok), as well as Master Lian (Juju Chan Szeto), who seems to be a serene eastern nun with martial arts credentials, and her two similarly skilled acolytes (Heather Choo and Claudia Heinz).

Dollops of very broad humor are to be found not only in Harnett’s wacky turn, but in asides provided by Sanjeev Kohli and Declan Baxter as the flabbergasted cockpit team and Hugh O’Donnell as a fussy flight attendant in first class.  Less engaging is the plot thread involving Sackhoff’s increasingly perturbed Brunt and Julian Kostov as her ambitious aide.  There’s also an obligatory MacGuffin in a “device” hidden on the plane, some sort of mini-computer everybody wants, that’s capable of decoding encrypted data and—as it turns out—even piloting an airplane.  It comes into play at the close, when an injured, woozy Reyes is informed by The Ghost that although they appear to have prevailed, there’s now a new threat to face—exasperating him and topping things off with not so much a suggestion of a sequel as a promise of one.

“Fight or Flight” is a completely bonkers addition to the John Wick everyone’s-a-hit-man genre, and it suffers from being essentially a one-joke, repetitive affair.  But Hartnett, a committed supporting cast and a raft of capable stunt people make what might have been a stiflingly claustrophobic trip more than bearable—if, of course, it’s the sort of comically violent journey you want to sign up for.