4. Fast Five

Release Date: April 29, 2011
Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Dwayne Johnson, Ludacris, Matt Schulze, Gal Gadot.
Director: Justin Lin
Click here for the original Pop-Break review.

Putting Fast Five so low will probably anger some, but viewed in the context of the larger franchise, the movie’s got issues. While it finally set up the right team dynamic by gathering favorite characters from movies past, it doesn’t quite know what to do with them. While the characters clash and show off their skills in the middle section of the film, they essentially disappear for the big climactic sequence. Except for Roman (Tyrese Gibson) and Han, they don’t even get to drive fast. Instead, the film foregrounds Dom and Brian’s relationship and after two films, putting them in opposition feels played out. Dom also seems to stall as a character here. Invincible heroes aren’t as interesting as those dealing with conflict and the movie makes that mistake by making Dom basically unbeatable and all-knowing. Diesel has never been much of an actor either and the introduction of Dwayne Johnson’s Agent Hobbs as his nemesis only makes that clearer. Cool as it is to see them literally smash through walls in a fist fight, Diesel doesn’t stand a chance against Johnson on any level except audience familiarity.

The best thing about the movie is that it has the most insane action sequence of the franchise up to that point. No, I’m not talking about the opening, where the team uses a single muscle car (the one passed down through the Toretto family from the first one) to flip the bus taking Dom to prison and he’s miraculously uninjured after it rolls a few times. Nor am I talking about the scene where Dom and Brian drive a car off a cliff, fly out mid-way down and emerge from the water unscathed at the bottom. I’m talking about the climactic sequence when they effortlessly drag a safe that probably weighs a couple tons through the streets of Rio de Janiero. There is no way two Dodge Chargers–unless they were souped up with jet engines–could move that safe fast enough to outrun the police. Especially when Brian and Dom are using it as a sort of slingshot battering ram to take out cars and buildings alike. And yet, it’s fun precisely because of how ridiculous it is. If it weren’t for a certain cargo plane, this sequence alone might have gotten the movie a higher ranking.

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