I don't think I could list the ways in which this movie sucked. It would take up far more time than I'm willing to put into it, considering the time I already wasted watching it in the first place. For all those "Who cares? It was fun" types out there, yes, I can see what you'd find fun in it. There were nice cars driving fast (though really, 2 races and 2 mediocre car chases are kinda disappointing in a car street racing movie), there were hot girls, good looking guys and some not too terrible jokes here and there. There were some beauty shots of Rio, if you count soft-focus, magic-hour shots of some of the crappiest slums in the world, as beauty shots. There was some drama too I guess.
I'd also like to point out how lazy and terrible movie posters have become.
Let's see...
-Terrible writing with equally terrible jokes delivered with equally terrible timing.
-Dumb guys standing around with hot girls feeding us the idea that street racing is sexy and cool and ballsy, despite it being dull, stupid and often dangerous with bystanders being killed a percentage of the time.
-Product placement gone mad. Seriously, two Dodge Chargers couldn't pull a full bank vault through the shitty streets of Brazil, much less one. They sound awesome when you're revving it, but once you actually need some power, sounding awesome isn't what you need. Real awesome is what you need. And besides, it's Brazil. Why the hell would every third car be a second-rate Dodge or Chrysler?
-Predictable. So predictable that it's impossible to ruin the film with spoilers as 1. There isn't really a plot, and 2. no one was surprised by any of the 'surprises'. Gee, you didn't know Dwayne would switch sides? I guess you're the 3% this movie was shooting for. Oh and the girl from all the other "movies" who's now hooked up with Buster the Great White Hope? She's now preggers with his spawn, gawd help us. And oh yeah, she can't drink alcohol, but she CAN drive fast cars and jump out of trains and shoot guns and be shot at by guns - those are all cool with expectant mothers.
-Ego strokefest. So much time is spent re-racing the old re-races from the other "movies" that I almost forgot about the other races that were inherent to the plot. Oh, yeah. There weren't any.
-Pandering. How many female cops have you guys met? I'm not saying they're ugly or a little muscular for my tastes or 'butch', as they say. I've actually met a few women cops that were both good cops and fairly pretty, some downright beautiful. Most were plain and butt-ugly though, just like their male counterparts. What I haven't ever seen, like ever never not ever ever never seen never never is a cop ever like Elsa Patakay or Gal Gadot (hmm, I found my long lost sister, Gal!). To say these girls are too beautiful to be cops (much less street cops in Brazil or elite manhunter navy seal-esque super cops) is like saying Steve Buscemi is too ugly to play the story of Brad Pitt's life. Ha! Iss funny becuss iss true.
-Contrived. It's too stupid and ridiculous to explain how contrived the end scene, errr, scenes (because it never damn ends) are, other than to say; with the number of times they had to improvise and change plans on the fly and add new peeps and new allies and still end it all like Ocean's Eleven, like it was all part of the "plan", you know, the "plan" that was abandoned and reworked ya know, in light of all this new evidence, man, cuz you're not ya know, like we know you're not privy to all the new shit and all. All we needed was a little faith I guess. Or peyote
-Acting. The lack thereof. I'm certain the Japanese guy is the Lawrence Olivier of his generation, in fact I'm fairly positive he must be some J-pop star because the man had range, son! I swear his mouth moved once and the words were totally synced up right. He didn't cower, hand to mouth and scream "Gojirra!!!!!" once! In fact, he did nothing. Nothing at all. No! Wait! That's unfair! He did smile at the Givenchy runway model as she bested all the men in driving in a circle really really fast. Without even spraining her Pocky sized ankles doing all that shifting. Especially since shifting 8 times in 12 feet is pretty impressive, especially while drifting around hallways in a warehouse, especially considering she was driving a 4-speed.
Half the time I felt like that Directv commercial where the kid is taunting the "cowboys" in the movie he wants to watch tonight, and later, on the sofa, watching the cowboys having a bar fight and the kid asks, "They know they have guns. right?" A lot like that. Not only did every single bad guy take the obligatory double-tap center mass, but not one good guy was even grazed, except for Goose, of course, because there has to be some heartwarming shit among all the carnage. Ya know, to go along with the baby announcement, brother/sister reunions, bro hugs, and "Seems like old times?I'm too old for this shit" stares. Goose had to die so Maverick can be the solo pilot he always wanted to be and Iceman could go on to become fat and gay and do a tv show.
So yes, I highly recommend Fast Five.
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