I am not much of a lad for franchise movies, for superhero movies, for racing movies. The last superhero movie I unequivocally loved was Spiderman 2 -the one with Tobey not Andrew, and while I tend to go to these franchise flick, it isn’t while expecting much pleasure in the entire enterprise.
The “Fast And Furious” is no exception: a boys with toys extravaganza starring the more than aptly named Vin Diesel and a cast of racing fiends including Paul Walker (who died in a car crash during the filming of this one) as well as Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Elsa Pataky and Lucas Black. On the side of the cops is Kurt Russell and Dwayne Johnson, and as the villain, hellbent on avenging his kid brother, is Jason Statham.
The action sequences are pretty spectacular with cars being dropped from planes and hitting the Caucasus Mountains at full speed, a Maserati leaping from one high rise to another in Abu Dhabi, and a high speed chase in the streets of L.A. before Jason and Vin battle it out mano a mano.
As good away as any to kill a coupla hours and with a sweet farewell to Walker at the end, the real excitement here is the trick in using doubles and his brothers to seamlessly keep Paul around through to the end.
The soundtrack is volatile EDM and not as annoying on the the soundtrack as it ii, well, on the soundtrack, and about as full of character as the generic figures of fun. T.I., Kid Ink, Wiz Khalifa, are not untypical, with only DJ Snake and Flo Rida standing out from the pack.
And about as generic as this review because of all the things that are difficult to do, finding anything interesting to write about this movie must be high on the list of the nearly impossible. If you take it seriously you’re a fool, if you don’t appreciate its high velocity knock em shock em, you’re a tight ass.
Grade: B-