You know you’re not in for a reinvention of the wheel with this, the fifth The Fast And The Furious 5 film, but surprisingly it turns out to be more entertaining than its recent predecessors. Much of this is attributable to the onscreen street racing being dialed down in favour of Ocean's Eleven-style heist plotting and favela gunplay straight out of Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. It’s telling of how far the franchise has moved from its origins that we’re not even shown a mid-film street showdown, Fast and Furious 5 moving from macho posturing to race outcome in the blink of an eye and zero carbon footprint.
Don’t think for a second that cars aren’t pivotal to the film, however. They are the items that set up the film’s epic battle between heroes and villains and take up the last fifteen minutes in an embrace of crashes and sheer physical impossibility. Returning stars Paul Walker, Vin Diesel and Jordana Brewster are joined by Dwayne Johnson and Gal Gadot as pieces of machinery for the camera to drool over. They act like machines too, but chops aren’t really required or expected with a director who’s getting pretty good at moving the pieces around. Justin Lim has made three of these films now (as well as several episodes of Community) and with the wider scope of this latest installment and time to move on to better things.
Unfortunatley,this gallery of supporting roles have really never been anything more than set dressing for me. Like I stated earlier a spin off of the movie Ocean's Eleven. Like the other films in the franchise, Fast Five is loaded with fast cars, women dressed in skimpy attire, and high octane street racing events. Is it a great film that will leave a mark on my mental? No. Is it a fun film? Yes. But Fast Five will excite the fans and kick start the summer movie season. In comparison, like the Twilight movies, this will be as front loaded as a nos- charged hot rod engine... and it will burn out relatively quick.
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