Fast Five
Only one way to quit being a criminal, and apparently that's by doing a big crime.
Carrying on
right after the fourth installment, the crew are now all wanted by the police - more so when a "botched job" gets a number of DEA agents killed. Having had enough of this BS the FBI decides to send in their best hunter (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) and his team to hunt down those dastardly thieves once and for all. To make matters more interesting, the same botched job also pisses off another wealthy bad guy who is out for blood to get back what is his. Deciding it's time to quit the criminal life, Dom (Vin Diesel) plans one last big heist and assembles a team composed of characters from all the previous movies. For me, especially having watched everything in sequence, this is pretty cool.
I'd be worried too if The Rock got me in a headlock!
It then turns into a little bit like Ocean's Eleven, only with more cars involved and while it also makes for a longer movie it also makes it better! They've added a ton more violence, fighting and gun play here and while they've slowly been upping the kill count I think this one certainly holds the highest so far. While there is less actual racing, the few races present actually have more meaning or are more interesting than the previous ones. I quite liked the cop car one as that was the most level playing field the characters have had for awhile.
I suppose I should also mention that there's a fair bit of Portugese in the film being set in Rio and all, and that Gal Gadot is hot, but the important part is that I give this movie four tires out of five and would definitely watch it again. I even watched all the credits this time to watch the CGI race at the end! All up, this sequel better than the initial outing!
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Furious 6
Where the writers thought... what other vehicles can we throw in there?
Best FBI hunter man (The Rock) is hunting another band of thieves in fast cars, this time with a more military background, but since they are too slippery for him (seriously, does he catch anyone on his own?) he is forced to ask help from the now "retired" Dom and his team. To help convince him he does have an interesting hook - one of Dom's old pals is working for the competition. That, and pardons for his crew if he gets the job done. I quite like the opening credits to this one as it has snippets from all the movies that have come before.
With most of the cast returning from the previous movie, it's pretty cool that they get to combat a rival team this time who are driving modified F1s, and it's refreshing that they aren't going up against "another cartel boss". Luke Evans is a welcome and more hands on bad guy from the previous bunch and while there's certainly still killing and shooting, there's less of that than the previous flick and more focus on hand to hand here. I was most impressed with Gina Carano's fights in particular. Once again there is also awesome CGI and a high volume of vehicular destruction also gets the thumbs up from me.
Good luck catching this!
Despite all this there are quite a number of negatives for me - the main one being some ridiculously over the top action sequences that break suspension of disbelief. There's also an unnecessary trip by one character into "danger" which is basically filler and could have been cut out. I should also mention that the chicks in the London street racing scene are the most conservative so far, which could be a plus or minus depending how you look at it. Ultimately I score this film three and a half tires out of five and... yeah, I'd still watch it again. :P
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Furious 7
The first movie that actually happens after Tokyo Drift.
The big bad brother of the bad guy from the previous movie is the main bad now, and has sworn vengeance on Dom and his team (most of whom return again here). For me he is even better villain than his brother since he mostly works alone, and he's Jason Statham! His intro scene is bloody fantastic. Unfortunately, for a supposedly ultimate deadly assassin he makes ever increasing faulty judgement calls. The main one probably being warning his mark that he's coming for him.
They finally find an excuse to dress up!
Yes, there are car chases here - and again with new vehicles to chase and be chased by them combined with over the top BS CGI physics that I was hoping they'd steer away from but it's almost on the same level as last time. At least the hand to hand combat is epic, this time with Ronda Rousey and Tony Jaa showing off their skill. It's really the flaws of Statham's assassin that get me because ... gah... logic!? Just be sneaky and you'll win! Anywho, I still give it three and a half tires out of five like last time since it was pretty entertaining and yeah, I'd watch it again.
I also was quite touched by all the feels for Paul Walker near the end there, possibly because I watched all the movies in sequence. At the same time I was impressed that they managed to make the rest of the film with body doubles, CG replacements and voice and film snippets for his character. That did get it some bonus points from me.
