The Fast And The Furious Retrospective Series - Fast Five (2011)

Written In December 2013

Plot Summary Taken From Wikipedia

Following the events of Fast & Furious, when Dominic is being transported to a U.S. prison, Mia and Brian lead an assault on the bus, causing it to crash and free Dominic. While authorities search for them, the trio escape to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Awaiting Dominic’s arrival, Mia and Brian join their friend Vince and other participants on a job to steal three cars from a train. The job goes awry when Brian and Mia discover the train is carrying DEA agents and that the cars are seized property. When Dominic arrives with the rest of the participants, he realizes that one of them, Zizi is only interested in stealing one car: the Ford GT40. Dominic has Mia steal the car herself, while Brian and Dominic fight Zizi and his henchmen, with Zizi killing the DEA agents assigned to the vehicles. Dominic and Brian are captured and brought to Zizi’s boss, who orders the pair be interrogated to discover the location of the car. However, they manage to escape and retreat to their safehouse.

Dominic, Brian, and Mia are blamed for the murder of the DEA agents and U.S. DSS agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and his team arrive in Rio to capture him. While Brian, Dominic and Mia examine the car to discover its importance, Vince arrives and is revealed to be working for Reyes when he removes a computer chip from the car. Dominic forces Vince to leave and, after investigating the chip, Brian discovers it contains details of Reyes’ criminal empire including the locations of $100 million in cash, and plan on stealing Reyes’ money to start a new life. The trio organize a team to perform the heist, recruiting Han, Roman, Tej, Leo, Santos, Gisele and Vince. Hobbs and his team eventually find and arrest Dominic, Mia, Brian and Vince. While transporting them to an airport for extradition to the United States, the convoy is attacked by Reyes’ men, killing Hobbs’ team and Vince. Hobbs is saved by Dominic, Brian and Mia as they fight back against Reyes’ men and escape. Wanting revenge for their murdered team, Hobbs and Elena Neves (Elsa Pataky) agree to help with the heist.

The gang breaks into the police station where Reyes’ money is kept and tear the vault from the building using their cars, dragging it through the city with police in pursuit. Believing they cannot outrun the police, Dominic makes Brian continue on without him while he attacks the police and the pursuing Reyes, using the vault attached to his car to smash their vehicles. Brian returns to kill Zizi, while Reyes is badly injured by Dominic’s assault. Hobbs arrives on the scene and executes Reyes. Hobbs refuses to let the pair go free, but unwilling to arrest the team, agrees to give them a 24-hour head start to escape. The gang split Reyes’ money, with Dominic leaving Vince’s share to his family, and they go their separate ways. In a post-credits scene, Hobbs is given a special file by Agent Monica Fuentes concerning the hijacking of a military convoy in Berlin. In the file, Hobbs discovers a recent photo of Letty, who was presumed deceased, revealing she survived the events of Fast & Furious.

My Reaction To This Movie’s Ending:

My Reaction To This Movie’s Real Ending:

What Did I Think Of This Movie Overall? 

Now onto the actual review.

PROS:

• Dwayne Johnson is in this movie.
• Dwayne Johnson is awesome in this movie.
• Dwayne Johnson fights Vin Diesel in this movie.
• Ludacris, Tyrese Gibson, the two Latino guys from the last movie, Gal Gadot, and Sung Kang are all back in this movie.
• Eva Mendes is in this movie.
• The action kicks some serious ass.
• The score is really good.
• The fight between Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel isn’t just awesome because it’s Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson, it’s also awesome because it’s well choreographed, well lit, uses no shaky cam, and has actual stakes.
• Paul Walker and Jordana Brewster are not given short shrift in this film.
• Gal and Sung have great chemistry.
• Mia is pregnant and this is handled well.

CONS:

• As always, the biggest con first and foremost, is the lack of an interesting villain. You could Hobbs is a villain, but he’s only an antagonistic presence for half of the film.
• Not a con within the film itself, but after seeing Gal in this film, I’m thinking less Wonder Woman, and more Catwoman. This concerns me somewhat.

Overall this film was an excellent action picture, and I can’t wait to check part 6 where we are FINALLY introduced to an actual villain, but for now I’m going to give Fast Five a 9.5 out of 10!

The Fast And The Furious Retrospective - Fast & Furious (2009)

Written in December 2013

Plot Summary Taken From Wikipedia

Dominic and his new crew (Letty, Han, Leo, Santos and Cara) are hijacking fuel tankers in the Dominican Republic. Dominic begins to suspect the trail is too hot and leaves Letty behind in order to protect her from harm. Several weeks later, in Panama City, Dominic gets a call from Mia, who tells him that Letty has been murdered by Fenix Calderon (Laz Alonzo), after getting into a near fatal car accident. Dominic heads back to Los Angeles to examine Letty’s crash and finds traces of nitro-methane. He then goes to the only car mechanic that uses nitro-methane and coerces him into giving him the name David Park (Ron Yuan), the man who ordered the fuel.

Meanwhile, F.B.I. agent Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) is trying to track down a drug dealer named Arturo Braga (John Ortiz). His search leads him to David Park. Dominic arrives at Park’s apartment first and hangs him out of the window by his ankles before letting go. Brian, who was also on his way to Park’s place, saves Park who now becomes the FBI’s new informant. Park gets Brian into a street race through Los Angeles. Brian selects a modified Nissan Skyline GT-T ER34 from the Impound Lot. Dominic also shows up to race in his modified 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle. Gisele Yashar (Gal Gadot), the liaison for Braga, reveals that the winner will become the last driver on a team that traffics heroin between the United States-Mexico border. Dominic wins by bumping Brian’s car, making him lose control. Brian uses his power as an FBI agent to arrest another driver, Dwight Mueller (Greg Cipes), and takes his place on the team.

The following day, the team meets one of the Braga’s men. They drive across the border using underground tunnels to avoid detection. Brian had prior knowledge that, after the heroin was delivered, Braga ordered the drivers to be killed. However it was revealed to Dominic from Fenix that he killed Letty and after a tense stand-off, Dominic detonates his car with nitrous to distract Braga’s men and Brian hijacks a Hummer with US$ 60 million worth of heroin. Both Dominic and Brian drive back to Los Angeles and hide the heroin in a police impound lot where Brian picks up a modified Subaru Impreza WRX STI. Later on, Dominic finds out Brian was the last person to contact Letty, which results in him being attacked by Dominic until he learns Letty was working undercover for Brian, tracking down Braga in exchange for clearing Dominic’s name. Brian tells his superiors that in exchange for Dominic’s pardon, he will lure Braga into a trap, forcing him to personally show up to exchange money for the heroin. At the drop site, however, Ramon Campos (Robert Miano), the man who claims to be “Braga”, is revealed as a decoy, and “Campos”, the real Braga, escapes and flees to Mexico.

Brian and Dominic travel to Mexico on their own to catch Braga. They find him at a church and apprehend him. As Braga’s henchmen come down to rescue their leader, Brian and Dominic drive through the underground tunnels back to the United States. When some of Braga’s men are killed, Brian crashes his car and is injured after being T-boned by Fenix at the end of the tunnel. Before Fenix can kill Brian, Dominic, who survived the explosion and exchanged his 1970 Dodge Charger with a 1973 Chevrolet Camaro, drives into and kills Fenix. As police and helicopters start streaming to the crash site on the USA side, Brian tells Dominic to leave, but Dominic refuses, saying he’s tired of running. Despite Brian’s request for clemency, the judge sentences Dominic to25 years to life. Dominic boards a prison bus that will take him to Lompoc penitentiary and as the bus drives down the road, Brian and Mia, along with Leo and Santos (who assisted in the Dominican Republic heists), arrive in their cars to intercept it.

It’s like somebody took the best parts of the last three movies, and put all together in this movie. Who is that guy again?

Oh this guy’s cool, what else has he done.

Wikipedia: The last movie you watched, and the next two movies in this series.

Nice! What’s his next project?

Huffington Post: He’s directing Bourne 5, with Jeremy Renner reprising his role as Aaron Cross from Bourne Legacy.

Eh, I wish Matt would come back, but I love Jeremy so I’ll give it a look. But now to the actual review! Did you people need the info I just presented you with? Not especially, but I love Bourne and this guy’s awesome so shut up!

PROS:

• The action is equally as awesome as, if not more awesome than, Tokyo Drift!
• The set up for the next movie and the reference to the last movie are enjoyable.
• Vin and Paul are just as great together as they were back in The Fast and The Furious.
• The opening sequence is some of most entertaining action in this film!
• We finally get to see Michelle Rodriguez do what she does best, be freaking awesome!
• At the end of the movie we get to see Mia behind the wheel of a car looking pretty darn boss in that driver’s seat and ready to kick butt, I like that!
• Han is in this movie. And Han’s awesome!

CONS:

• The villain is rather uninteresting when it’s revealed he IS the villain, I liked this guy more when I thought he was just the bad guy’s number two.
• This isn’t an issue with the film itself, but at the end of the final action sequence, we saw Paul Walker looking pretty bloody and bruised, and there’s a distinct feeling he may not make it through. On the one hand, this is a great strong point that film has made me care for this character, but on the other hand, it’s very unnerving to see an actor who recently passed away in such a violent way in this form. But the movie does not lose any actual points for this scene, it just made very uncomfortable.
• Gal Gadot’s character makes her debut in this film, and while I did like her as a one of character, I was left wanting more from her knowing she has been recently cast as Wonder Woman. This again a not a flaw within the film, I just felt kind of let down.

Unlike the last movie, I don’t need to give two overall ratings to this film, it kicks ass and is a pedal to the metal joy ride, so as another action flick and a Fast & Furious movie, I’m giving this an 9 out of 10!

The Fast And The Furious Retrospective Series - The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)

Written In December 2013

Plot Summary Taken From Wikipedia

After totaling his car in an illegal street race, Sean Boswell (Lucas Black) is sent to live with his father, who is stationed as a U.S. Navy officer in Tokyo, Japan, to avoid juvie or even jail. While in school, he befriends Twinkie (Bow Wow), a “military brat” who introduces him to the world of racing in Japan. Though forbidden to drive, he decides to race against Takashi (Brian Tee), the “Drift King” who has ties to the yakuza. He borrows a Nissan Silvia from Han Seoul-Oh (Sung Kang), now a business partner to Takashi, and loses, totaling the car because of his lack of knowledge of drifting, racing that involves dangerous hairpin turns. To repay his debt for the car he destroyed, Sean must work for Han. Later on, Han becomes friends with Sean and teaches the young racer how to drift. Takashi’s uncle Kamata (Sonny Chiba), a yakuza head, admonishes Takashi for allowing Han to steal from him. Takashi confronts Han, Sean and Neela (Nathalie Kelley), whereupon they flee. During the chase, Han is killed in an accident in his Veilside Mazda RX-7 and Takashi, Sean and his father become involved in an armed standoff which is resolved by Neela agreeing to leave with Takashi. Twinkie provides his saved money to Sean to make up for Han’s stolen money which Sean returns to Kamata. Sean proposes a race against Takashi to determine who must leave Tokyo. Sean and Han’s friends then build a Ford Mustang ‘67, with a Nissan Skyline inline 6 engine, and others spare parts and Sean wins the race. Later, Sean is challenged by an unnamed driver: Dominic Toretto.

So what to say about this movie… Uh…

Yeah that works, but to be fair, let me real quick get my actual thoughts out of the way. From what I’ve heard, fans of this series are not especially fond of this movie. And to a degree, I get why, if it weren’t for Dom’s cameo at the end and Han’s apparent connection to him, this film would be to Fast & Furious what Never Say Never Again is to James Bond. However, it is not a bad movie at all. I liked plenty of things about it, I’ll speak about them right now.

PROS

• This movie has arguably even better action than 2 Fast 2 Furious and FAR better action than The Fast And The Furious.
• Like Ludacris before him, Bow Wow does a pretty good job as an actor for a musician.
• I haven’t seen the main actor in anything before, but he’s really good!
• This Han guy oozes liquid cool!
• The villains in this movie are actually really good.
• This is a movie that takes place in Japan that has only 3 credited white actors and only 1 credited black actor, this is great because the movie takes place in Asia and would logically have a cast of primarily ASIAN actors!
• The Japanese people in this movie SPEAK JAPANESE!!!!
• Vin’s cameo at the end is on par with RDJ’s cameo at the end of The Incredible Hulk.
• When the cars in this movie are beat to hell, they LOOK beat to hell!

CONS

• The fact that we only see how this movie is connected to the last two movies in one quick scene that could easily be cut out of the movie is kind of an issue.
• There’s a scene at the beginning where Sean’s about to get into a street race, and when he the jockey douche are discussing their terms, the girlfriend decides that the winner keeps her. I’m not sure how I feel about that…
• I’m not sure if I just wasn’t paying close enough attention, but I wasn’t fully understanding what the issue was between Han and the Yakuza. But I don’t think it matters necessarily.

I’m going to give this movie two overall ratings; as just an action thriller it is a solid film and I give it an 8.5 out of 10! But, as a Fast and Furious movie, i have to go a bit lower and give this a 7 out of 10… Let’s see where they go from here I guess.

The Fast And The Furious Retrospective Series - The Fast And The Furious (2001)

Written In December 2013

Plot Summary Taken From Wikipedia:

The film is loosely based on a magazine article, titled “Racer X”, about street clubs that race Japanese cars late at night. Elite street racer and ex-convict Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his crew: Jesse (Chad Lindberg), Leon (Johnny Strong), Vince (Matt Schulze) and Dominic’s girlfriend Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez), are under suspicion of stealing expensive electronic equipment. Brian O'Connor (Paul Walker) is an undercover police officer who attempts to find out who exactly is stealing the equipment. He worked for FBI agent Bilkins (Thom Barry) and LAPD officer Tanner (Ted Levine). It was confirmed.

Falling for Dominic’s younger sister, Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster), Brian later confesses to her his status as an undercover cop and convinces her to come with him to save her brother and his friends from the truck drivers, who have now armed themselves to combat the robberies. He tracks Dominic’s location by triangulating his cell phone signal and they arrive at the hijacking in-progress to find Letty, badly injured at the car accident, and Vince critically wounded, having lacerated his arm and been shot by the truck driver. Brian and Mia work together with Dominic, Leon and Letty to rescue Vince. Brian then makes the difficult decision to blow his cover to the crew by phoning in for a medivac. The revelation enrages Dominic, but he contains himself and flees with Leon, Letty and Mia as the medivac arrives for Vince.

Brian follows Dominic to his house and holds him at gunpoint to prevent him from fleeing. Jesse arrives shortly afterwards, apologizing for his actions at Race Wars and pleading for Dominic’s help with Johnny Tran (Rick Yune). Moments later, Tran and his cousin Lance Nguyen (Reggie Lee) perform a drive-by shooting, killing Jesse. Brian and Dominic chase them, with Dominic driving his late father’s modified 1970 Dodge Charger. Dominic forces Lance’s motorcycle off the road, severely injuring him, while Brian shoots and kills Tran. Afterwards, Brian and Dominic engage in an impromptu street race, narrowly avoiding a passing train. Dominic collides with a semi-truck and rolls his car twice, injuring himself, and rendering the Charger un-drivable. Instead of arresting him, Brian hands over the keys to his Supra and lets Dominic escape, using the line “I owe you a ten second car”.

Where to begin with this movie… It’s not very good as an action movie, most of the races are boring and generally not very interesting to look at. BUT, the scenes between Paul Walker (RIP) and Vin Diesel are very interesting, and generally have more life to them than the action sequences. Every time it’s just the two of them I’m entertained. So here’s what my pros and cons are:

PROS:

• Paul Walker and Vin Diesel are great together and generally are a lot of fun to watch.
• Rick Yune
• Interesting female characters.
• Ted Levine
• The cars are generally pretty awesome looking.

CONS:

• Boring action
• This movie made me realize why people hate Nu Metal.
• This movie takes itself way too seriously, have some fun man!
• This movie feels so lifeless, it comes off like something that just rolled off the production line at a car company.

Overall Rating: 6 out of 10, not a great start for this series.