Given my love of the Tremors franchise, it's surprising that I didn't know of this film's existence until about a month ago, but that in itself may not be surprising when you consider that the last one came out over a decade ago, regardless of lack of critical, need to know information, I have now seen Tremors 5, so lets go.
I do like the intro this film has with Burt Gummer and a recap on the life cycle of the Graboid, while I'm not the biggest fan of the Graboid life cycle and it's various forms, I like that they included that, for the 4 people in the world who will see this film before seeing any of the others. it's very cheesy, but I think that's rather the point. following that is a less interesting sequence in which we see our first casualty, the scene loses a bulk of it's quality when our Graboid snack pisses himself, I don't actually know if it was meant to be humorous, I genuinely don't know. Burt is still the slightly crazy hardcore survivalist he's always been, but he's old now, and while that has changed, very little else has, it's good that I think he's a great character, because this is definitely a less interesting appearance of Burt. What saves it is Travis, his new side kick, who is yet another side kick, but what I like about him is his shit talking, his persistence, something no Tremors sidekick has lacked so far, and I have come to like the backstory he's given, and how it ties into Burt's backstory, which get's a bit more fleshing out here too. Travis is actually really cool, and he's a very close second with Burt in characters I like in this film. it's a good thing it's such a close second, because there really isn't a lot of competition in any main role, there's a crazy old helicopter pilot who is completely badass in the 2 scenes he's in, I did want to see more of that crazy, because I really liked him. Van Wyk is also kind of cool, I like the betrayal element of his character, and I actually think he could have been given more significance as a blocker. Nanbi is just kind of there, apart from being a badass shot with a bow, she really doesn't do much in the film, her friend Baruti is much better character, purely down to the fact that he's funnier, or at least has a few funnier moments, and everyone else really just drops off the radar, even coming off of Tremors 4, this is a pretty weak line up of characters, but being honest, it's hardly a letdown. I say that for reasons I'll go into later. Plot wise, I wouldn't exactly call this weak though, taking place in a different place in the world, a place with a completely different culture, that is touched on in the film, and I like the story between Burt and Travis, I also like the Van Wyk stuff, is it as interesting as 2,3 or 4, no, is it as straightforward as 1, no, but I do think that the story here is not a bad one overall.
What may be considered bad however is the directing and the special effects. I actually expected the special effects to be completely terrible, as this film has all but abandoned the use of practical effects, but the CG isn't actually terrible, it's not good, but it's decent. what is more bad however is the directing, particularly during the action scenes, where the film tends to deploy fast cuts and shaky cam, 2 things I don't like, 1 effect that really isn't good and makes the action worse is the guns, very often it's very apparent that the actor is both not holding a real gun, and not making an effort to make it look real, 1 particular incident happens in a chase involving an Ass Blaster, it's laughable. I always say it's stupid to think there are people in the world that don't know now a gun works, but I'm in self doubt now. back to the effects because there are some design choices in this film that I have mixed feelings on. First up, the African Graboid, while I think the leaner, more spiky appearance of the Graboid is less cool than the American Graboid, I still think the redesign is pretty cool looking, and I think it's stupid, but I still like how they can fire out of the ground like missiles in this film, the baby Graboids in Tremors 4 did something similar, and I liked it then too. the Ass Blasters however, I wasn't a huge fan of them in Tremors 3, and while they're slightly less stupid here, they're still really stupid, and they too have received a radical redesign, making them look less like Ass Blasters and more like something out of the 2011 version of The Thing. And the grabbers just make no sense, why do the tongues become independent of the body, it's stupid. Something I found really weird and I didn't like was the nesting nature of the Graboids, it just comes completely out of nowhere, given that the Graboids in the first 4 films never went to such efforts, while they were smart, they never showed consideration for each other, seemingly only helping each other when it was mutually beneficial. Speaking of smart, the Graboids in this film don't show any level of intelligence, which, especially after Tremors 4, is not great. again speaking of intelligence, I said in my Tremors 4 review, that some things in the film don't make sense, but this film has it beat, a lot of things here are just utterly nonsensical, and I'll spoil one of them here, towards the end of the film, a character sends up a 'flare' to get another character's attention, the flare is a flaming arrow, in the middle of the day. how visible would an arrow be in the day, in the air, moving fast, on fire or not, and you must also consider that the person in question is distracting a Graboid, doesn't make a lot of sense that he'd take his attention off the monster chasing him to scan the skyline for an arrow, it really doesn't. But finally, back to something I touched on in the first paragraph that none of these things are really a let down, because, in all honesty, I actually had no expectations for this film, I thought it was going to be completely terrible. So, I'm actually pleasantly surprised that I did like parts of this film, and a film that defies expectations like that can't be that bad.
But, considering what I did like in this film, mainly Burt and Travis, I'd still say this is the weakest in the series, only about 3 of it's characters stand out, it has funny moments but not many, semi decent effects, but bad directing in the action scenes that detract from the entertainment they could provide. Like, Tremors 4, I appreciate it for going in a different direction, but I definitely enjoyed Tremors 4 more than this film. It's not terrible, much to my surprise, but I still wouldn't put it on the same level as the first 4, while it isn't something that should be actively sought out, I don't think it should be avoided at all costs either. I'd advice against passing up on it, it's a passable monster movie.
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