Skip to main content

Fast Five

Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, and Dwayne Johnson
Directed by: Justin Lin
Written by: Chris Morgan and Gary Scott Thompson

     Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and the crew are back for yet another action packed heist.  This time, they're in Rio de Janeiro and this is their last job.  But this time, they're doing it to buy their freedom.  So what's the payout?  $100 million from this guy, Reyes, the largest drug trafficker in Brazil.  As they assemble the crew into position, they are tracked down by the FBI.  The team is led by Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), one of the toughest guys in the FBI.  He never misses his target.  All Hobbs wants is for Reyes to be dead.
     As the fifth installment in The Fast and the Furious series, there isn't a whole lot of new stuff that Fast Five offers.  It's the same story but in a different place.  They're trying to steal their money while federal agents are trying to capture them and put them behind bars.  The difference is that the opening scene is probably the most exciting, action packed, and explosive job of all.  It seems that the story is more about the criminal activity going on than about street racing like in the earlier movies.
     The acting is also quite good.  Vin Diesel never fails to impress me as the strong guy whom you'd never want to mess with.  This is probably Paul Walker's best performance of all the Fast and the Furious films.  It's awesome that they brought in Dwayne Johnson for the role of a badass federal agent.  He's the perfect field officer because of his size.  He makes everyone around him look rather small, except Vin Diesel.  The problem with his character is that he is always shown sweating, even when he shouldn't be sweating.  It's a little weird if you ask me.
     Overall, I think this is the best Fast and the Furious movie yet.  It's the most action packed, the most interesting, and the most entertaining, and has the best music in the series.  What's cool about Fast Five is that most of the crew is actually present and everyone has relatively important jobs.  We aren't meeting many new characters, especially not as many as in the four films past.  I was expecting it to be the most awesome conclusion to a not especially great series, but again, there will be a sequel in a few years.  There will be a Fast Six.  You'll have to stay through the credits to understand.  If you're a fan of heist films, and big, noisy, and cool looking cars, Fast Five is the film for you.  However, I do recommend that you watch the previous four movies before seeing Fast Five.  It doesn't do a great job of filling in the gaps.
Fast Five comes in with an A-.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Unknown

Starring: Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger, and January Jones Directed by:   Jaume Collet-Serra Screenplay by: Oliver Butcher and Stephen Cornwell     "They had me convinced I was crazy.  But when they came to take me I knew."  Identity theft is a major problem in today's world, but it can't get much worse than the situation present in Unknown .       While on a trip to a biotechnology conference in Berlin, Germany, Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) is involved in a car crash putting him in a coma for four days.  He awakens to find out that not only has his identity been taken, but he has been replaced by someone who also claims to be him.  Even his wife Elizabeth (January Jones) claims to not recognize him.  He begins to believe that his entire life has been thrown away, or never existed at all.  As he finds people who can help him remember what happened to him before the crash, he becomes part of a conspiracy involving...

Transformers: The Last Knight

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Josh Duhamel, Laura Haddock, Isabela Moner, Anthony Hopkins, and Stanley Tucci Directed by: Michael Bay Screenplay by: Art Marcum and Matt Holloway      Does it ever feel like certain things are just getting old now?  Like, they're not even fun anymore? That's how I feel about Transformers: The Last Knight, the fifth installment of the Transformers series that Michael Bay has said is his last (even though there will be more of these movies).      Optimus Prime ( Peter Cullen) is gone.  He has left to go find his makers and see what is left of the planet Cybertron after being ravaged by war between the autobots and the decepticons.  While there he is seduced by a weird transformer sorceress named Quintessa (Gemma Chan) and changes his name to Nemesis Prime.  She convinces him that in order for Cybertron to live once again, Earth must die.  So like an asteroid speeding towards a point of gravity, Cyber...

The Hunger Games

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, and Liam Hemsworth Directed by: Gary Ross Screenplay by: Gary Ross and Suzanne Collins Based on the novel by Suzanne Collins      If reality television hasn't gone too far yet, then this show should definitely make it go too far.      In a futuristic nation called Panem, one boy and one girl are selected from each of the nation's twelve districts to represent them in an annual television event called the Hunger Games.  Of the 24 contestants, only one will survive in this televised fight to the death.      I like the concept of the story.  While this futuristic society seems somewhat simple, it does not seem all that well developed.  It is unknown how this society came into being, even though it is known how the Hunger Games began.      If this film were released last year, I would have hoped it would be nominated for best make-up.  Many of the characters ...