Review of Fast Five (2011) by Oxana — 23 Aug 2014

Fast & Furious goes Ocean's 11.

To get to the bottom of this movie and to be able to truly appreciate it, you should be familiar with the other movies in the series (although Tokyo Drift isn't that important). They bring in characters from all those movies, Han being the only one you can recognize from Tokyo.

They don't bother introducing the characters, really, other than the main trio (Dom, Brian and Mia). A lot of weight is put on Vin Diesel (Dom) to be big, hulking and mean looking; apparently just making him stand there, quiet and brooding, is enough to get the audience convinced that he is totally badass. Well, we all know he is badass, so let's move on.

The rest of the crew isn't introduced other than briefly, and some of them are hard to recognize (even when I watched the 4 previous movies on the same day as seeing this one). They really could have used a bit more time to flesh them out.

Apparently that isn't important or vital for the movie. In the middle of the unbelievable stunts that would normally result in all of our heroes dying a dozen times during this film, we have a nasty Rio drug-lord who must be punished for making their lives that much harder. In other words, they are going to rob him clean to start their new lives.

I liked this movie, no denying it, but when some of the stunts become just a bit too unrealistic, it kind of ruins the experience. Sure, you can just lie back and enjoy it, but even the final chase, which in its creativity was very amusing to watch, seemed far too drawn out. There is only so many times that seeing the same thing will make your heart pump a bit harder with excitement. After that you start frowning and decide that it is not possible to do that.

In a way the characters made this movie much more enjoyable than the action with the cars and guns. There were some good, witty lines, and seeing all these people thrown together was interesting. Even Dwayne Johnson pulled this one off admirably!

The little scene in between the ending titles suggests that they are entertaining the idea of another sequel. If they keep this up, it can't be bad.

Well worth seeing, and if you're a fan of the franchise, you'll definitely enjoy this.