FILM REVIEW (via Flixist)
FAST FIVE
Dir: Justin Lin
Stars: Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster
Running time: 130 mins
When people become aware that I review films, at the first sign of disagreement on the merits of the latest blockbuster, someone inevitably wheels out the line that I, as snobby film connoisseur, didn't like it because it wasn't made for me, that it was only supposed to be fun, too stupid to bear up to my apparently neverending critical analysis.
Fast Five is the opposite of that: it's a movie that isn't nearly stupid enough, that tries to be clever when there is no-one within a fifty mile radius of a screening who wants to see anything other than an hour and a half of explosive car chases, stunts galore and women of trouser-bursting sexiness. Character development? Social commentary? A goddamn pregnancy subplot? Woefully done, and detrimental to what should have been an extravaganza of brainless entertainment, had it stuck to the tone of the brilliant opening.
I didn't see the last movie, but am told this one picks up where that one ended, with Vin Diesel's Dominic being convicted and sent to prison. Fortunately, his old gang are waiting to execute what must be one of the worst thought through breakouts in the history of human planning, but it looks spectacular so logic be damned. EXACTLY, Fast Five. That's what I wanted from you. Not a trace of common sense, just balls-out lunacy. Things get better from there, with a sequence on a train that, one shot of bad CGI aside, has some brilliantly physical stunts and action escalated to levels of preposterousness above and beyond anything I could have imagined. (At least, until the film finally recaptures the same spirit for its climax). It's a giddy joy, making the comedown when the movie starts trying to do plot and character all the more distressing.
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