Summary: Fast & Furious is back for a fourth time. Normally, a fourth version is a recipe for box office poison, but this time the draw is the original cast has returned, including Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez. 2001’s Fast & Furious was a huge hit, the second and third didn’t match the original and Diesel refused to be in any of the sequels.

Review: You can’t expect too much from a pop movie like Fast & Furious. All the audience wants is some explosive action scenes to keep them on the edge and ferocious cars. In the beginning, this is exactly what you get. The movie opens with a perfect action sequence in the Dominican Republic. Michelle Rodriguez is hopping between speeding vehicles, Diesel making last minute decisions, resulting in excellent opening action sequence. Unfortunately, Fast & Furious starts at 100 and falls to zero after the first ten minutes.

The rest of the movie turns into a long reggaeton video—music, cars, alcohol, half-naked girls and lesbian kisses. There were more club scenes and random ass shots than a solid action plot. Fast & Furious lacks the velocity that it needs.

The director, Justin Lin, seemed hell-bent on injecting some serious acting skills. Vin Diesel tries too hard to be macho yet mysterious and drowsily performs like he took one too many shots of Nyquil. The dialogue resembled bad ’80s porn with extreme overacting and cheesy one-liners. Ironically, Fast & Furious is like porn, you want them to shut the hell up and get to the action!

Whatever the case, when the sporadic action starts, it’s full throttle. Big explosions, excellent use of the new technology in cars, which feels like a thrilling version of Pimp My Ride meets Pole Position. The ending was just as ferocious as the beginning, too bad the middle had too much cruise control. Furious needed more thrill and less trite dramatics.

Fast & Furious is in theatres today.

TAGS: Movie Reviews

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