Faster than Light

Oh, happy day! With the week's selection of new releases woefully unappealing (no thank you, Prom and Hoodwinked Too), I was more than happy to make action film Fast Five my latest destination this past weekend. The fifth (if the title wasn't a dead giveaway) in the box office-smashing franchise, the film was prefaced by trailers featuring amazingly fast cars, superb chase sequences, and just about every important character from the series making a return. I don't have much experience with the Fast and the Furious series; with only the first movie under my belt (as i talked about last week), and so I'm certainly no expert on the films starring Vin Diesel and Paul Walker, both of whose filmographies I'm quite okay with not being familiar. So why was I so excited about seeing Fast Five? Well, now that I'm officially a "film guy" I do admit some excitement about catching this film on the big screen. The genre of popcorn action films has been surprisingly weak so far this year, with expected blockbusters I Am Number Four and Battle: Los Angeles limping at the box office. Still, the big-budget special effects of Fast Five looked like just the remedy to these unknown quantities, and begged to be seen on an IMAX screen. If nothing else, the chance to visit anew a series that has already made fans of millions seemed like a good way to spend the day. With this chance for excitement too good to pass up, I made my way to the theater for some big screen heroics and explosions.

Aw, Paul Walker finally became a grown man!

When a deal gone bad makes Brian O'Conner (Walker) and siblings Mia (Jordana Brewster) and Dom Toretto (Diesel) enemies of the most powerful man in Rio de Janeiro, the three find themselves in deep water, as criminal kingpin Herman Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida) hunts them down for the secrets in their possession. Now, with the dual threat of Reyes's goons and a team of DSS government agents led by Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) hot on their trails, Dom and Brian decide that they are tired of running. Using what they have found, they plan to rob Reyes blind, and to do so they assemble a crack team filled of former allies and co-patriots to take the stuffing out of the man who owns all the power in the "Marvelous City."

"Car Surfing" was one X-treme sport that never really caught on

One of the big differences between Five and previous additions to the series is the relative lack of street racing, which had helped the franchise identify itself in the first place. The early episodes in the series made their bones with extensive looks at the illegal street racing scene, endearing themselves especially to teenagers and race enthusiasts. There's a reason the films have won so many Teens Choice and MTV Awards and not any Oscars, and that appeal to young audiences is at least part of it. Anyway, in this latest film, the street racing  is nearly ignored completely. Excepting a couple of scenes taking place at a meet and one personal contest between some of the main characters, the racing angle is almost completely overlooked, resulting in something more of a generic heist movie a la The Italian Job. This would have been a problem if the subject matter couldn't adapt to those changes, but thankfully the cast and crew are more than up to pulling it off. While more could have been done with these original elements, in the end they're barely missed.

It's the "gather around the computer" scene, a classic of heist films

Besides the amazing chase sequences, the cast was a huge draw for audiences, and for obvious reasons. Besides the "Big Three" of Diesel, Walker and Brewster, just about every character you loved from previous films has returned, unless they up and were killed off in the other sequels (characters from the third film, Tokyo Drift don't count since chronologically it is last in the series). From 2 Fast 2 Furious come Tyrese Gibson and Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges, Gibson as a fast-talking Lothario and Ludacris as a tech genius.  Tego Calderon, Don Omar, and the beautiful Gal Gadot return from their roles in the fourth film Fast and Furious as well, though only Gadot is even remotely fleshed out. Yes, I do mean that literally. Sung Kang has appeared in more Furious films than everyone besides Vin and Paul, and reprises his ultra-cool racer here. Even Matt Schulze returns as Dom's childhood friend Vince in a role that hasn't been seen since the very original. For all these returning characters, the key is to make them appealing to everyone, not just the fans series as a whole. While I'm sure it HELPS to see the earlier titles to understand these characters better, I felt fairly attached to them from the get-go. Everyone from Brewster to Omar (who barely speaks any English at all) felt authentic to me, and while Diesel and Walker were often front and center, the rest are given enough to do to not make them seem worthless. The only real disappointment there would be Schulze, which is a shame since the character had such potential in his return. Unfortunately, the script doesn't seem to know what to do with Vince besides being a means to an end. He's kind of like Captain Kelly on Battlestar Galactica; you see him around, and he seems to belong, but the story doesn't seem to have any use for him, and he is eventually tossed aside.

Too late, Dom and Brian realize they're NOT driving the Mach 5

Fast Five's new characters manage to hold their own against the established stars, however, and help make the film better overall. Dwayne Johnson seems comfortable stepping back into his ass-kicking shoes. As the film's secondary antagonist, Johnson's DSS agent does whatever he can to catch the bad guys, and he's got our heroes dead in his sights. It's good to see a man who made a name for himself as a tough guy stop wasting time with family-friendly films like The Game Plan and The Tooth Fairy. He's born to be an action star and should get a legitimate chance to do so. Elsa Pataky also impresses as perhaps the only honest Rio cop, and her inclusion is done expertly well by the script. Only Joaquim de Almeida is uninteresting as a generic two-bit corrupt businessman. He at least manages to prove somewhat dangerous, with the deepness of his pockets and his multitude of faceless minions who die at his whim. There's just nothing to differentiate him from the many like villains that died at the hands of heroes in the past decade. Still, he's the odd man out in what is otherwise a compelling cast.

The People's Champ looks about ready to lay the smack down

The film does oversimplify things by disregarding the entire idea of "innocent bystander" in some of the more outlandish chase scenes, and we feel good in knowing that no innocents are EVER caught in the crossfire. It is this disregard for the real world that allows the film to just sit back, relax, and enjoy our popcorn. While it does absolutely nothing new (and is possibly the least innovative in the Fast and Furious series), Fast Five is honest enough of a film to be avoid being a derivative knockoff. Truly exciting and worth every penny of the ticket price, you should do yourself a favor and see it in the theaters if you're going to see it at all. At parts funny, engaging, sexy and never dull, Fast Five might be remembered as the top action film of 2011. That's saying a lot, with the comic book adaptations of Thor, Captain America and Green Lantern awaiting their turns this summer to shatter box office records. For now, I'm as surprised as anyone that Fast Five debuts as the #8 best film of 2011. Maybe it'll be the last in the series; maybe it won't. For now I'm just glad I took a chance and saw this when I did.

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Speed Bumps

I believe that the ultimate purpose of film is to take the viewer to places they've never seen and give them experiences they've never had before. Even if the situations presented are familiar, the movie must put forth little-known ideas to entertain its audience. After all, how interested would we be in the films we watched if they were to present to us things we already knew firsthand? It has to shock us or make us laugh, and no matter what city, country or planet you set your tale on, a film needs to have that element of the unknown to really resonate. When The Fast and the Furious debuted in theaters way back in 2001, it brought to the table the intrigue of illegal street racing to the forefront. Featuring a bevy of big names sure to appeal to the younger set, the film went from unknown quantity to megastar, raking in the dough and becoming a true international phenomena. For stars Vin Diesel and Paul Walker, the film helped catapult them to super-stardom. Diesel landed the legendary role of golden-hearted crook Dominic Toretto, sandwiching it between infamous characters Richard B. Riddick (Pitch Black) and Xander Cage (xXx), proving his draw with audiences. Walker also benefited greatly from the film, taking the popularity he earned on it for all it was worth. Two sequels to the film followed. Walker returning to star in 2 Fast 2 Furious, a movie equally panned and successful. Though it no longer had Diesel on board, the franchise had legs (or wheels, in this case) and took off, spawning yet another sequel in the process. Having little to do with the previous films (and taking place in Japan, as well), The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift was financially disappointing, even considering that it starred Lucas Black and Bow Wow, relative nobodies by Hollywood standards, in leading roles. It did well enough to conceive yet another addition to the family, however. Fast & Furious was most notable not only for being the most successful film in the series, but the first sequel to reunite the stars of the original film; Diesel, Walker, Michelle Rodriguez and Jordanna Brewster returned in grand fashion, leaving no theater carrying excess tickets. And so they did it again. This time Diesel, Walker, Brewster and a mishmash of characters from all four previous films reunite in Fast Five, a sure assault on the senses that screens this coming weekend. Of course, since it hasn't come out I have yet to see that film. And so I decided to perform something of a pregame ritual this past week, using my Netflix resources to see the original deal, celebrating its tenth anniversary this year.

You just don't mess with a man wearing a cross around his neck

Having next to nothing to do with the 1955 Roger Corman original, the film stars Paul Walker as Brian O'Conner, an undercover police officer attempting to gain acceptance in the world of Los Angeles's illegal street racing scene. A group of racers are hijacking semi-trailer trucks, and Brian has been sent in by the FBI to determine which of the crews is responsible. To that end, he attempts to get close to the crew run by Dominic Toretto (Diesel), facing adversity at his newcomer status. Still, he manages to gain Toretto's trust, along with that of Dom's sister Mia (Brewster) and several of Dom's followers. After fruitless investigations into rival groups, Brian eventually concedes that the Toretto clan (with all of whom he as practically become friends) are the culprits, and must decide whether his loyalties fall on the side of the law or friendship.

Sunglasses; making people look like asses since 1929

Wow, when I go back and re-read that, it seems even more implausible than I THOUGHT. The Fast and the Furious is so dependent on cheap thrills that its easy to imagine how horrible the film would have been without gratuitous car races, chases and overall vehicle exploitation. The cars are even more sexualized than the underdressed young women who attend these events, making for an interesting reversal, but it all just detracts from the fact that there's very little actual story going on. Of course, story is far from the main reason people like these movies (and you pretty much have to know what you're getting into with ANY Vin Diesel film) and as long as you can take in the adrenaline rush the movie throws at you, it can be enjoyed on a more primative level.

Unseen off-screen: the rampage of teen girls storming the set

In fact, it's these race scenes in which the film shines. Director Rob Conlon, who for much of his career has thrived on action titles, shows a good eye for angles and conveying just how fast these care are going, a visual difficulty to which anyone remotely familiar with NASCAR events can attest. Conlon succeeds in letting the viewer in on just how exciting and dangerous it can be in one of these heavily-modified vehicles, and it makes the film all the more enjoyable to have the audience brought in on the action. It's an obstacle not too many directors can overcome.

Ooh, that's gonna hurt

Acting in action films, however, is one that is really never attempted. Part of the reason for this is the genre's focus on explosions and excitement over plot and character development. You typically won't see a top-caliber actor stoop to doing action films (unless its Will Smith), and by the same degree you'll almost never see a performer in an action role nominated for a major award. Action movies tend to be the harbor for lesser performers to catch an audience, and FatF is the perfect example of such a device. Diesel is of course little more than a gigantic meat-bag, flexing muscles upon muscles and backing that up with his usual gravelly bass vocals. Showing only occasional glimpses of emotion (and the actor he COULD be if he tried), Diesel simply settles. While Toretta is definitely one of his signature roles, it's not really all that different from most of his others, with the notable exception of Riddick. Walker looks too young to be either a real undercover cop or legitimate street racer, and has the acting talents only slightly above. His good looks might make the ladies swoon, but they can only carry him so far and is role is such a poor melange of cliches that it's almost a shock that he became the face of this franchise. Rodriguez does little more than smack talk and drive the occasional car, and any depth to her character must have been left on the cutting room floor. Brewster is only slightly better, and her romance with Walker's character is shoved to the side at the first sign of real excitement. There are some good supporting characters, but even they are limited by the shallowness of the film's script. Rick Yune, Chad Lindberg and Matt Schultze do their best in underrated performances, but ultimately are only minor distractions from the real stars.

The only things pimped here are on the street

While the upcoming Fast Five might have cracked my most anticipated films list for this month, I'm certain I could have passed on seeing this original, as I'm sure the sequel's story will not depend on me knowing what happened in the previous films. Still, for entertainment on its most basic level, you could do a lot worse than The Fast and the Furious in picking rentals. Sure it's lacking in plot, character and sensibility, but when you have so many visuals going on at once, those missing things can be forgiven and forgotten. The true secret to its success, however, was the ability it had to introduce us to a real-world event that most of us may never see first-hand.

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