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Post by StevePulaski on Dec 8, 2015 15:37:12 GMT -5
The Fast and the Furious (2001) Directed by: Rob Cohen Paul Walker (foreground) and Vin Diesel (background) in The Fast and the Furious. Rating: ★★★ The Fast and the Furious is, at the very least, an intriguing franchise, for it gives gearheads the kind of inspiration and fantasy they need to have to keep sane. I've always found car hobbyists to face quite the paradox; the problem with cars is that they are grossly expensive, so if you're a middle class man, having two is quite the luxury. However, if you're deep into cars as a fascination, you presumably not only want one or two cars, you want several, and you want them customized and rigged to your liking. Customizing and optimizing the performance on one car is grossly expensive, but having a garage of half a dozen or more customized/optimized vehicles could cost as much as your house and your neighbor's houses put together. This is why, each and every day, I'm more and more satisfied with my lack of interest in cars and my own obsession with the Honda Accord I drive. The Fast and the Furious also gives gearheads that kind of adrenaline rush and visualization of their dreams realized because they, themselves, often don't have the means, the vehicles, nor the kind of closed-range courses to carry out the kind of eye-popping stunts and mayhem the characters in these films cause. It caters to that level of unbridled excitement, when you're actually racing in a vehicle and that moment where you get that indescribable pang in your chest reminding you know that you're alive. I was fully ready to embrace this franchise for its fantastical elements, but unsure if I could still be entertained watching car chases and death-defying stunts for an upwards of two hours. What's pleasant about The Fast and the Furious is that it focuses on the relationships the characters have with one another in the midst of all the racing. The film's slender plot revolves around Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker), an undercover Los Angeles police officer sent to infiltrate a ring of truck hijackers and street racers in the heart of L.A.. Led by Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel), a suave know-it-all when it comes to vehicles, the gang is known for their heavily armed carjacking activities of large eighteen wheelers, in addition to their work at auto-body shops where they modify and customize cars, some of which flirting with and others unabashedly breaking the laws of what is street legal. Also working in Dom's crew are Leticia Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez), his longtime girlfriend and mechanic at his shop, in addition to his sister Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster), whom becomes the apple of Brian's eye late in the film. Brian's infiltration of Dom's ring soon becomes corrupted by his fascination with the culture Dom and his crew have created; it's a culture that specializes in prompting and maintaining a longterm adrenaline rush in the most unique and heart-pounding ways. Despite Brian's responsibility to uphold the law through all this, he finds his involvement with Dom going above and beyond the call of the law, as far as hooking up with Dom's sister and helping Dom plot a crackdown of former partners that have turned into rival gangmembers following a reneged agreement. No matter which way you slice it, The Fast and the Furious is slight in substance, but often very strong on a level of entertainment. At only one-hundred minutes, it pleasantly skates by without being too much of an assault on the senses and operates largely on the charm and infectious personalities of its actors. Walker is the standout of the crowd, maintaining a certain level of cool and street-smarts and his character never hitting the level of cocksure confidence, making him a more watchable and likable presence. That's not to undermine Diesel's role here, because without him, this film wouldn't be as much of a bromance as it already is. From the first race, it is clear that Walker and Diesel have enough chemistry to create a bond between two opposite characters in terms of life paths in order to go on many more adventures with one another. The supporting cast of Rodriguez and Brewster are fine, though even in more masculine roles, the two feel like nothing more than decorative pieces of eye-candy that help further the plot along when convenient. But perhaps such was just destined to be the case in The Fast and the Furious, a film where escapist tendencies take over and nothing else matters besides the moment when your car begins to redline or a part becomes misplaced in Dom's garage of odds and ends. Being that this film largely predicates itself on male bonding and the thrill of racing from both an illegal and adrenaline-charged angle, The Fast and the Furious largely possesses a homey quality that makes it believable and grounded in reality, despite a certain conclusion with a certain train that, I confess, was still entertaining in the realm of cinematic incredulity. This is a fun and effective film in being every gearhead's fantasy and being a damn fine piece of entertainment. Starring: Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, and Jordana Brewster. Directed by: Rob Cohen.
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Post by StevePulaski on Dec 9, 2015 1:15:20 GMT -5
2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) Directed by: John Singleton Paul Walker and Tyrese Gibson in 2 Fast 2 Furious. Rating: ★★½ Being that there are a countless number of different vehicles, and the number of options to customize said vehicles are astronomically high and infinite, Rob Cohen's Fast and the Furious was only destined to spawn a sequel as cornily titled as 2 Fast 2 Furious. This time, the cars are slicker, the characters are slightly different, the ante is upped, and a new director helms the camera for a mostly satisfying second spin around the block. The film returns its focus on Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker), the undercover police officer from the first film, who has now retired from the force in Miami, earning a living by streetracing. He meets a retired racer named Tej Parker (rapper Ludacris), in addition to a car mechanic named Jimmy (Jin Auyeung), and a fellow street racer named Suki (Devon Aoki), and decides to live comfortably within his means, meaning dodging cops and entering high-profile races. While evading the police after one particular street race, Brian is apprehended by U.S. Customs Service, which informs him that in order to wipe this case, along with many others, off his record, he'd have to join an FBI mission to bring down a drug lord named Carter Verone (Cole Hauser). After hesitantly accepting the deal, being that Dom is now on the run from the law after being set free by Brian, Brian enlists in the help of Roman Pierce (Tyrese Gibson), a childhood friend and ex-convict with a love for cars almost matching his own. The two work with an undercover Customs agent named Monica Fuentes (Eva Mendes) in order to help bring down Verone. Unlike The Fast and the Furious, which was mostly concerned with replicating the kind of adrenaline and energy rush one experiences from street racing in a way that emphasized male bonding and the love for being alive, 2 Fast 2 Furious focuses more on the theatricalities of the racing experience. Car races and hot pursuits in this film have a glitzy aesthetic to them; a dose of what seems to be science-fiction moreso than any kind of realism, as in the first film. This is a film that's also more concerned with trying to find the perfect one-liner for the characters rather than emphasizing the relationship between the lead characters, which, between Walker and Vin Diesel in the original film, was built on a brotherly trust. Gibson has the energy and charisma as a performer, but writers Michael Brandt and Derek Haas don't give him the same kind of nonchalant aura or conversational grace Diesel had, which helped elevate the first film. Walker is still here doing the best acting job he can, given the very limited role his character has outside of being a cool presence, but Gibson's characterization is too flat and cheeky to uphold what Diesel did in the first film. The film was directed by John Singleton, who during this time, was reemphasizing to the same American audiences who didn't pay to see Rosewood or Baby Boy (also starring Gibson) in theaters that he is a multi-talented directing presence that deserves your consideration. Singelton's direction, which favors a lot of in-car shots during racing but doesn't skimp on exterior details, proves that The Fast and the Furious, while largely inspired as a concept and a franchise by the 1955 B-movie, isn't by any means a cheap exploitation film involving four wheels and muscle. It's a glossy, thoroughly Hollywood incarnation of the now-forgotten testament to breaking all written and unwritten rules of the road. 2 Fast 2 Furious is sweet and harmless, and once again, not an assault on the senses in terms of being a sensory overload of chaos. It rekindles the charm of the bromance between its two leads, all while showcasing some nicely choreographed race scenes (particular Paul Walker's 'drive and stare' sequence, in addition to the couple of times he tries to handle his car backwards), and relies on its incorruptible energy to get by. The result may be a bit too much too soon in terms of theatrics, but most fans will likely see it as an incorporation in the series that was almost too little too late. Starring: Paul Walker, Tyrese Gibson, Eva Mendes, Cole Hauser, Ludacris, Jin Auyueng, and Devon Aoki. Directed by: John Singleton.
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Post by StevePulaski on Dec 9, 2015 19:26:54 GMT -5
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) Directed by: Justin Lin Lucas Black in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Rating: ★★ The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift opens with a sequence so breakneck and fast-paced it may give you whiplash. Set in sun-soaked Arizona, it opens by focusing on local boy Sean Boswell (Lucas Black), who is being teased by a typical high school jock for his ragtag vehicle while he proudly boasts a blood-red Viper. Sean is prepared to drive away after delivering a zinger, but instead nearly takes a wrench to the jock's vehicle after he throws a stone and breaks a window on Sean's car. The jock's girlfriend suggests the two settle it out in a race in a property development community where the winner, she says, will "win me" as their prize. Ho ho. Sean and the jock agree to the bet and endure a breathless four minute long race that is so American in what it does; everything from fast cars, to stereotyped characters, to the aching masculinity are profiled in this opening scene, which does indeed circumvent to a greater moral when the race is over and the characters are badly maimed in the hospital; these street-racing incidents are illegal for a reason and often result in serious accidents. Sean's mother cannot afford this latest escape, which has Sean's car totaled and his life in jeopardy now that he is about to be imprisoned on prior street-racing charges before he's even eighteen. As a result, she sends him to live with father, who is stationed in Tokyo and a part of the U.S. Navy. Sean meets Twinkie (Bow Wow), the only black guy to be found in Japan, who introduces him to Tokyo's underground street-racing scene which, unlike most American races, is predicated upon the vehicular art of drifting. For those unschooled, drifting a vehicle is performed on a sharp turn, which puts all the emphasize of control and handling on one particular side of the car, resulting in a tire-screeching and, if done correctly, slick method of completing a difficult turn without one losing control of the vehicle or losing too much speed in the process. I've done it with friends on a snow-covered parking lot; it's as fun and as exhilarating as it sounds. If you can't drift in Tokyo, you're worse than a loser - you're an outsider, and early in his stay, Sean meets Takashi (Brian Tee), Tokyo's well-respected Drift King, along with his girlfriend Neela (Nathalie Kelley). Sean impulsively decides to race Takashi, but because he has no conception of drifting, he loses miserably on a course made up of tight turns and many opportunities for close calls. In order to prevent embarrassment the second time around, Sean calls on street-racer Han Seoul-Oh (Sung Kang) for assistance, in order to eventually beat Takashi and avoid getting caught up in dirty underground business. The Fast and the Furious movies have taught me a lot in just three fairly breezy installments, but I would've never guessed how much could be obtained and how many problems could automatically evaporate thanks to slick vehicle tricks and street races. Enemies often turn to close friends, a laundry list of felonies are expunged off records, drug lords are stopped, mass respect is earned, nationalities come together, and globalization is achieved. I may be going too far off the deep-end with the last two, but keep in mind I have four more films to tackle, so these can be seen as early predictions of impact. The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, however, doesn't have the charisma of its predecessors, nor does it have Rob Cohen's hand for flashiness nor John Singleton's assured hand at balancing chaos. Justin Lin interjects the kind of dizzying action I was hoping these films would avoid, and the characters here feel like further developed archetypes similar to how 2 Fast 2 Furious's loud mouth character Roman Pierce (Tyrese Gibson) thrived on smart-ass comments. For all the brooding Lucas Black does here, very little emits any character development or likability (at least Paul Walker had his coolness and his wit to back him up), and Bow Wow is laughably flat as the token black character who has to teach the outsider the ways of the streets. Screenwriter Chris Morgan's decision to take the franchise in a different direction is an admirable one, but also perhaps too soon for its own good. The second film didn't focus on Vin Diesel's Dom character, nor did it really emphasis the kind of believable, common-man quality of all the racers and street-races in the first film. The inevitability of the Fast and the Furious franchise is it succeeded the first couple times because it emphasized a wee bit of plausibility in its schemes, however, monstrous box office success for an action film will always lead to sequels trying to push boundaries and up the dosage of chaos in each successor of the franchise. While Tokyo Drift doesn't get too crazy, it's still never quite as fun, especially being that the people involved in these races aren't particularly likable, and outside of a fairly strong, if unabashedly silly, opening scene, there's little merit to the third outing save for a special cameo by someone we've waited too long to see anyways. Starring: Lucas Black, Bow Wow, Brian Tee, Nathalie Kelley, and Sung Kang. Directed by: Justin Lin.
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Post by StevePulaski on Dec 10, 2015 0:14:12 GMT -5
Fast & Furious (2009) Directed by: Justin Lin Rating: ★★ In my review of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, I elaborated on the inevitability of The Fast and the Furious's fall from the roots of its original two films. The first two films emphasized a strong sense of plausibility in its circumstances; when I say that, I mean that it resonated with its audiences in a manner that had them seeing themselves on-screen and the kind of ridiculous car tricks and stunts they attempt to pull off when they're with their buddies. The chemistry of Paul Walker and Vin Diesel was undeniable, and the charm at hand was enough to sustain an entire film. The inevitability I spoke of in my review of the third film was that this series would slowly drift away from that focus and, in turn, be more about pushing boundaries and becoming a glossier, more implausible action spectacle than keeping the kind of down-home feel of the original films. Fast & Furious, which, yes, is the fourth film, indicated by the lack of two "the"'s in the title the franchise used up until this point, turns a fun and amiable series, thus far, into a gritty, CSI-style drama. It morphs into a primetime drama with some seriously expensive street-racing sequences that, again, somehow solve and uncover the most layered drug busts and thefts across the continental United States. The result is a film that, after probably the best opening scene of the entire series so far, slowly spirals into the drudgery of senseless mayhem and cheerless characters. Poor Paul Walker has even sacrificed all the coolness and nonchalant mannerisms from the first two films to become one of the flattest actors on screen here, lacking all emotion. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that, from my count, Walker's Brian O'Conner character gets beat up three times in this film, and at one point, takes a serious beating after a carwreck. The fifth film of this ostensibly neverending franchise should open with the maimed Walker and his comrades in the hospital struggling to swallow Vicodin with miniature plastic cups of apple juice if it even wanted to replicate anything close to realism. Walker's Brian O'Conner has been reinstated to the police force, and Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) has been relaxing in Panama City for the past few months when he gets a call from his sister Mia (Jordana Brewster) that Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), Dom's mechanic/girlfriend, was killed in a potentially pre-meditated car accident. Brian's investigating leads him to the name of Arturo Braga (John Ortiz), a heroin kingpin intent on smuggling copious amounts of heroin from the U.S. to Mexico. Brian and Dom, who are now rekindling old enemy territories with Brian returning to the force, must attempt to work together to avenge Letty's death, with Dom also trying to remain out of trouble and stay away from police with his fugitive status. As stated, the opening scene of Fast & Furious takes the cake for the franchise's strongest, most entertaining opening thus far, and possibly the best scene in the entire series all along, as well. The scene involves Dom, Letty, and the remainder of his crew attempting to steal fuel tankers off of a big-rig truck, which is hauling six or so. The object is Rico Santos (singer Don Omar) and Teo Lego (Tego Calderón) to maintain speed with the rig in their vehicle so that Letty can hop aboard the truck, freeze the rig's connection to another rig and smash it with a large wrench, which would allow it to properly latch on to Han's (Sung Kang) truck for safe-keeping. Trying to elaborate on the interworkings of this scene is difficult in itself, but watching this unfold is every bit an action film fan's dream, especially during the harrowing, incendiary conclusion. This scene is the indisputable highlight in a film that greatly falters because (a) it takes itself far too seriously for a film about street-racing, (b) doesn't have the actors nor the narrative weight to make this film anything other than a dime-a-dozen story of a group of guys trying to stop the Pablo Escobar of (insert drug or illegal activity here), and (c), forgoes profiling the admirable energy levels of its performers. Fast & Furious is about as much fun as getting to the final lap of a race, maintaining your speed, putting your vehicle on cruise control, and then flipping radio channels to see what you can listen to while you miss all the excitement and fun that got you there in the first place. Starring: Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, Jordana Brewster, John Ortiz, Don Omar, Tego Calderón, Sang Kung, and Michelle Rodriguez. Directed by: Justin Lin.
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Post by StevePulaski on Dec 15, 2015 11:13:18 GMT -5
Fast Five (2011) Directed by: Justin Lin Paul Walker and Vin Diesel. Rating: ★★ How many film franchises that struggled to merit strong critical reception to match their copious box office earnings can say that, in the eyes of the masses, they got it right the fifth time? The Fast and the Furious franchise is one of the only ones I can think of in that respect, and this is largely because where most franchises would admit they've run out of gas and are having difficultly finding new ground to cover, The Fast and the Furious buckled off and took a detour when it really needed it. When the previous installment, Fast & Furious, failed to excite even die-hard fans, the result for Fast Five was for writer Chris Morgan to continue to embed that grittier style he toyed with in the fourth film to the franchise's formula. The result is a film that plays more like The Italian Job than a Fast and the Furious film, as the emphasis on cars is downgraded considerably to just one street race at the end and the emphasis on the film is a lot of masculine energy in gun fights, fistfights, and a central heist in the storyline. All of this is well and good, and maybe this is what Fast and the Furious began asking for after the fourth film, but for me, this feels like this series went through metamorphosis and became something it was never supposed to be nor foreseen to be. The action setpieces in the film are all undeniably strong in how well they are articulated - especially one in particular which I'll address later - and the level of energy over the course of two hours, the longest runtime a film in the series has boasted thus far, never depletes or falters. However, Fast Five abandons what made the series so likable in the beginning, and turned it into a glossy action film that feels like the highlight reel from an action film. If the first two films in this series were underground street-racing events, this film is the antiseptic showroom floor of a Ferrari dealership. We follow the same characters we have in previous installments, specifically Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker), the cop-turned-street-racer-turned-cop-again-turned-street-racer-once-more and his friends Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his sister Mia (Jordana Brewster). In the opening scene of the film, Brian winds up preventing Dom from going back to jail by causing a large pileup involving the bus Dom is being transported on. Miraculously, nobody else on the bus is hurt and only Dom escapes, with the crew fleeing to Rio de Janeiro. It doesn't take long for U.S. Diplomatic Security Service agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) to get hot on Dom's trail, especially when the group hatches a plan to steal $100 million from a corrupt business tycoon named Hernan Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida). The gang decides that robbing Reyes would give them enough money to kick back for a while, or at least until the characters are called in for another sequel, er, job. In order to pull off such a high-caliber operation, they enlist in some old friends Fast and the Furious fans may recognize. Roman Pierce (Tyrese Gibson), a longtime friend of Brian's is one of them, along with both street-racer and criminal opportunist Han (Sang Kung) and street-race organizer Tej Parker (Ludacris). All together, the gang assembles like Marvel's Avengers and attempts an international crackdown of epic proportions. Fast Five is the point in the franchise where the series goes to space in order to try and desperately invoke some sort of life and new concepts into their tired formula. The cockamamie qualities of Fast Five might as well have the entire cast beaming up to a different planet or a galaxy far, far away for how incredulous things become in this film. That's not to say the earlier films weren't, but Fast & Furious and Fast Five's jarring tonal shifts work to suck all the fun and juvenile sentiments out of a franchise that boasted them like oscillating rims on a fresh new import. The film isn't a total loss, as some scenes are particularly energetic and provide for some comic absurdity. Consider the scene I alluded to earlier, where Brian and Dom are in separate vehicles both hauling a huge, steel safe across a highway with cops on their tale. Just before they get to the highway, however, they are driving through crowded metropolitan streets, turning corners so sharply and quickly that the safe can barely do anything besides topple over, jackknife, and subsequently shatter the walls and fronts of buildings alongside the road. The repeated collisions between the wall and the safe, which is about half the size of a boxcar on a freight train, doesn't make it come loose nor does it cause any disturbance on part of Brian and Dom as the drivers hurling the safe through the streets. Watching this mesmerizing event is like watching the laws of physics slowly implode on themselves, and it occurred to me that if people started elevating from the ground as if they were being sucked into the heavens in that same particular scene, or at any point throughout this film for that matter, the film's own laws of logic would not be compromised. If Fast Five was going to assume more of an outlandish route, that would've been the route I preferred. Not a route that has the characters operating as soulless robots through cluttered ins and outs of a convoluted heist, nor the gloominess of a film that takes itself too seriously at the same time doesn't attempt to be realistic. The original two films offered such an inviting and homey quality to the street racers; where the characters had to avoid the cops in the nick of time or face potentially catastrophic penalties and fines. It was the kind of cheery little thing many people in the audience could presumably relate to. The franchise has now extended itself to the point where street-racing and cars have become secondary in hopes to reach a broader audience; how that isn't viewed by the audience as the franchise selling out is a mystery to me. Fast Five is certainly fast in terms of pacing and editing, and it's also indeed the fifth film in this franchise, but just maybe, besides the multiple "the"'s and "and"'s misplaced from this film's title, this franchise is running out of gas and is afraid to really show it. Starring: Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, Jordana Brewster, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Sang Kung, and Joaquim de Almeida. Directed by: Justin Lin.
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Post by StevePulaski on Dec 16, 2015 0:42:25 GMT -5
Fast & Furious 6 (2013) Directed by: Justin Lin Vin Diesel and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Rating: ★★★ Fast & Furious 6 picks up on our trusted gang of gearhead criminals following the heist they pulled off in Rio de Janeiro that took place in Fast Five. Now, all of Dom Toretto's (Vin Diesel) crew are fugitives, including the retired FBI agent Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) and his wife Mia (Jordana Brewster), Dom's sister with whom he now has a child. The family are now living in Rio de Janeiro off of the $100 million sum of cash they stole and are trying to maintain normalcy into adulthood. One day, the U.S. Diplomatic Security Service agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson), who previously tried to stop Dom and his gang's efforts to pull off the heist, has discovered potentially revolutionary information on Dom's allegedly deceased girlfriend Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), who was seen alive and taken by a vicious British Special Forces officer named Owen Shaw (Luke Evans). The bottom line is Shaw needs to be taken down and Hobbs knows that Dom, Brian, and Mia, despite being a family, have the skill-set and power to take down Shaw. Hobbs agrees to allow them entry into the United States once again on a citizen status rather than fugitive one, to which they accept. Reassembling their team of Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Han (Sang Kung), and Tej (Ludacris), the gang looks to take down yet another criminal mastermind no international organization in the world can touch and only a group of skilled racers can infiltrate. Fast Five was a film that bothered me in numerous respects, but mostly because it seemed that it did nothing more than sell out the core principles of what its franchise was founded upon in order to pull in a greater audience. The sad part was, through all the physics-defying flashiness and stunt chases, even the core fanbase of the series fell for its tricks, and the film went on to be declared the best in the franchise by many critics and audiences. Having said all that, going into Fast & Furious 6 knowing that this new gritty, crime-drama style the series has been implementing since Fast & Furious, the fourth installment, was still going to be in effect, I was about as hesitant as ever. I emerge from the film with the confidence in saying that Fast & Furious 6 is the best film in the series since 2 Fast 2 Furious, a film that for all its issues, is still a fine piece of action-comedy during a year where that genre thrived (the underrated Hollywood Homicide, for one, also came out that same year). This is a film that has it both ways: it's a slick and stylish film predicated upon car racing and vehicular muscle and a strong crime-drama that keeps its characters in perspective through all its gritty style. Fast & Furious 6 touches more on pathos than the previous installments; it cuts through the blatant homoerotic relation the male characters have with other male characters and the fetishization of their vehicles to reveal a deep humanity in regards to relationships. Consider when Dom finds out the high possibility his girlfriend he believed to be deceased is now still alive and, despite being incredulously so, she doesn't remember him at all upon seeing him again. These scenes are revealing because, for once, behind all the glitz and glamour of this franchise, these characters, in addition to the audience, can step back and see the individuals behind the wheel as people (the humans crushed in the scene that takes place on a highway, involving a tank going the wrong way and demolishing every car in its path don't get the same luxury of being humanized, but an installment in this series has yet to be perfect). The emotions don't run saccharine-thick, but they are present, and unless you've let the macho physiques of Diesel and Johnson get the best of you throughout the course of this film and the last, you should at least be able to respect the film's intentions and see what it's doing. Then there's the fact that this film, unlike the last three before it, is plain fun. The characters are more unified in this film, working together and asserting their own personalities rather than just ostensibly working off of one another in a contrived manner in Fast Five. The conversational banter between characters here is also, for the first time since 2 Fast 2 Furious, strong in a way that's witty and enjoyable, though not overdone like in the aforementioned film. Finally, the film's slickness and gritty story doesn't become a downbeat array of fistfights and shootouts like in Fast Five. Everything feels, even for a Hollywood action film, delicately handled and even modeled in a way that emphasized slowburn pacing with humans at the core. Fast & Furious 6 still finds itself overwrought in terms of further distancing itself from the downhome realism in the first film to the point where its inclusion is about as minuscule as a spec of dust on one's rearview mirror. Having said that, when it comes to The Fast and the Furious franchise rebranding itself, this is a more assured and capable spectacle that doesn't feel like it's pandering or selling out, but truly embracing the souls many of us have followed for over twelve years now. Director Justin Lin and screenwriter Chris Morgan, who have handled the directing and writing jobs, respectively, for every installment in the franchise since Tokyo Drift, have finally come to the point where they're not only respecting those involved in the projects, but also the audience. Starring: Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Sang Kung, and Luke Evans. Directed by: Justin Lin.
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Post by StevePulaski on Dec 18, 2015 0:43:53 GMT -5
Furious 7 (2015) Directed by: James Wan Paul Walker leaps into the role of Brian O'Conner one last time in Furious 7. Rating: ★★★ The sudden death of Paul Walker in late November 2013, by car accident nonetheless, prompted a whirlwind of shock and tears from the film and car community. One of their own was taken by the very same vice he used to propel his name in film and exercise his passion in the real world. It was a stern reminder to people of two very important things: one, as much as we can go see each new installment of The Fast and the Furious franchise, we must remember that cars are weapons that many of us operate or embrace each and every day and, two, that living religiously by your passion can also warrant you dead by that same passion, and in my mind, that's not a bad way to go. With Walker's death and a cast and crew in mourning, the completion of the seventh installment of The Fast and the Furious franchise was in limbo. Using the process of CGI, an elaborate digital program that allowed for flawless facial reconstruction, casting Cody and Caleb Walker, Paul's brothers, to double as him in numerous scenes, and not focusing too intently on Cody or Caleb during his scenes with close-ups or long takes, Furious 7 was able to be completed and now serves as a satisfying sendoff to an actor that, even non-fans can agree, was taken too soon. At any rate, it must've been tough being Paul Walker's Brian O'Conner character. Not only can you not make up your mind about whether or not you want to leave the FBI or become a full-time fugitive/street-racer, as of late, you're raising a kid with another in tow and have gone from driving tricked-out hot-rods boasting nitrous to a minivan - a vehicle with a sliding door you can't even figure out how to operate. Such is life for O'Conner in Furious 7, as him, his wife Mia (Jordana Brewster), her brother Dom (Vin Diesel), and his wife Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) have returned to the United States after having their fugitive status revoked by U.S. Diplomatic Security Service agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson). The gang are trying to live a normal, suburban life when a mysterious package is sent to them from Tokyo and subsequently explodes, causing their home to blow up in smithereens. The bomb was delivered by Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), the brother of Owen Shaw from Fast & Furious 6, who has come for vengeance. Deckard's plan is to exterminate each and every member of Dom's crew, and after successfully killing Dom's trusty mechanic and do-all man Han (Sung Kang) and putting Hobbs in the hospital, Dom knows he's not playing around. Brian, who has admitted not only to missing the bullets and the gunfire above all the racing and the girls that came with it, and Dom have no choice but to round up the remainder of their crew - everyone from Letty to wise-cracking Roman (Tyrese Gibson) and street-race organizer Tej (Ludacris) - to try and settle the score. There's also an interesting technological element here known as "God's Eye," which is given to the group by Frank Petty (Kurt Russell), the leader of an special ops mission that helps the gang bring down Shaw the hard way. "God's Eye" gives the group the ability to hack any technological device with a screen or a lens, be it any ATM machine, cell-phone, Television, or camera in the country. They shockingly end up using it wisely in order to orchestrate attacks and plan ahead on Shaw's whereabouts. The first three Fast and the Furious films were all playful romps that exuded some level of believable qualities and a method to their madness. The fourth film began the descent into grittier action territory, while the fifth film unevenly merged the silliness with the sleek action formula that created a lesser Italian Job film of sorts. The sixth film, the first good film in the franchise since the second, successfully merged the sleek with the silly, emphasizing some pathos and interjecting it in with some seriously eye-popping action sequences. Furious 7, on the other hand, is entirely absurd; a highly energized film filled with muscle and emotion (but not enough to corrupt any masculinity, I assure you), it manages to crank up the lunacy to entirely new levels. While the film may be reset in Los Angeles, it's a Los Angeles that ostensibly takes place on an entirely different planet. Most setups and occurrences in this film are so baffling and logic-defying, they make the famous "safe" scene I expanded upon in my review of Fast Five look completely and totally plausible. While these sound like criticisms, they are most certainly not. Each Fast and the Furious film comes with a truly riveting and memorable race scene, and this film's most notable one is the series' most bizarre, and this is also considering the opening scene of the fourth film. It involves Brian and Dom escaping a high-rise building in an unfathomable sports car by smashing through its glass front. That seems pretty standard on the surface, until you realize that the two are about sixty stories in the sky and smash through the glass front of the window and successfully land on another skyscraper only to do the same thing and leap to another skyscraper. Watching this play out gave me the feeling that the homey Fast and the Furious films, the first and second one specifically, that echoed those fathomable sensibilities I mentioned earlier are long gone. Instead, this is a film that is so outlandish it might as well have a Marvel logo stamped on it. This, however, isn't a bad thing. Unlike the repetitive and almost entirely unrelated Fast Five, Furious 7 keeps the emotional pull here, with the constant emphasis on family and brotherhood in a way that, as cliche as it is, tugs at the heartstrings given the real-life circumstances that really brought this film together. Here, we begin to see Brian and Dom as real people, despite them being ostensibly immune to damn near everything. We see their age and we see their experience almost begin to fade in the face of a villain who is as cruel and cold-hearted as he is empty (though Statham may be at his most vapid here in terms of character, he's also at his most frightening as a presence). Furious 7 offers a lot in its one-hundred and thirty minute runtime; I was stunned how invested I was in it because every Fast and the Furious film after three had a flabby portion that had me losing interest or zoning out for a few minutes. This is a film that's a sendoff, a love-letter to itself and the communities it helped build and inspire, and those who have watched these characters for well over a decade and have grown to respect them as if they were in their own car group. The film is one big, celebratory "cheers," and the multitude of cars revving and reaching incalculable speeds is another way of hearing the "clink" the champagne glasses - or Corona Extra bottles - make when brought in contact with one another. Drink up. Starring: Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Jason Statham, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Kurt Russell, and Sung Kang. Directed by: James Wan.
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Post by StevePulaski on Apr 14, 2017 14:39:17 GMT -5
The Fate of the Furious (2017) Directed by: F. Gary Gray Charlize Theron and Vin Diesel. Rating: ★★★ The worst thing that could happen to The Fast and the Furious franchise has already happened and that's the fact that it's continuing after the wonderful sendoff that was Furious 7. It was everything that begged the series to close, including a heartfelt triumph and lovely sentiment regarding family and brotherhood.
If The Fate of the Furious is anything, it's a vote of confidence. It's a vote of confidence for the inevitable ninth and tenth installment of a franchise that started back in 2001 that the series has a direction and a sense of loyalty to its characters, and respects audiences enough to give them installments that have real stakes and real entertainment. If The Fate of the Furious was made and treated like another franchise cash-in after the death of the film's lead actor, then it hides it very well in a disguise of a favorable sequel.
The film revolves around the same family of gearheads that we've come to love; a family that is now put in jeopardy when their leader, Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel), is coerced into working for a woman known as "Cipher" (Charlize Theron), a skilled cyberterrorist with a motive to ignite nuclear warfare. Dom's move to operate against his crew - including his wife Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and many friends Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Ludacris), and Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) - puts everything he said before about loyalty in doubt. With the help of "Mr. Nobody" (Kurt Russell), the gang works with "God's Eye," the all-seeing, global tracking device to get a read on Dom and Cipher's location. Also along for the ride is Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), the rogue assassin who worked against the group for so many years. His masterful fist-to-cuffs combat fits in well with both the street and computer-smart folks who spend all their time getting wired up again for another exhilarating ride.
The Fate of the Furious echoes the motivations of the fourth installment moreso than any film of the franchise from this decade as it turns into more of a crime procedural with more high-octane action. Consider the scene where Cipher and her team, in efforts to secure a suitcase containing nuclear codes, override the signals in self-driving cars and control them to infiltrate a police escort in order to assume control of the limousine in which two world leaders are riding. During this scene, vehicles pull abrupt U-turns out of nowhere on busy city streets and cars drive through the spotless glass of showroom windows and off the cliffs of parking garages, plummeting hundreds of feet and sending everything into an incendiary blaze.
The only thing more surprising than witnessing this is just how great all of it looks. The Fast and the Furious series has found a memorable director in F. Gary Gray (Friday, Straight Outta Compton), who knows how to handle the onslaught of action no matter where it takes place. The climactic finale of the film takes place in the tundra of Russia, where first, Roman's bright-orange Lamborghini falls into icy water beneath a thick sheet of ice, and later on, Luke hops outside of the vehicle he's driving to redirect a torpedo to the opposition. You'll be lucky not to break a sweat during all of this, and if you feel your head begin to swell, that's your brain telling you not to strain yourself when suspending disbelief.
One of the most amazing things about each installment of this franchise is how it consistently makes you forget how many people die in every new venture, including innocent bystanders. Consider Cipher's aforementioned hacking of self-driving cars, which eventually results in a city block being completely covered in destroyed automobiles, several of them ablaze, and several already exploded. And just think how many car accidents could've amounted in the opening scene in Havana, Cuba, when Dom races a beater car through the narrow city streets and two motorcyclists race their bikes ahead of them to block traffic at four-way intersections.
The point is, bringing realism and a critique of vehicular physics to a Fast and the Furious film isn't so much like bringing a knife to a gun battle but like bringing a sharpened pencil. You're going to lose and it'll be embarrassing.
The best thing about The Fate of the Furious is its willingness to have real stakes for the characters and to show even the most casual fan, such as myself, or critic that we care at least a little bit about the welfare of these characters, even if they often don't deserve our sympathy. Excluding Vin Diesel's ongoing attempt to have as little charisma as possible, when his squinted eyes and downturned brows glare at Letty as she, hurt and frightened, angrily asks him, "you gonna give up on family, Dom?," there's a real sense of urgency and gravity in that moment that continues during most of the encounters with Dom and his crew throughout the rest of the film.
Then there's screenwriter Chris Morgan (who has written every Fast and Furious film since Tokyo Drift), who isn't afraid to have some characters take bullets and make choices that will likely impact future installments from here on out.
The Fate of the Furious has issues. For one, it's too obsessed with finding a punchline, almost never having a serious moment that isn't interrupted by a stupid quip by Roman or some sort of patronizing comment by Tej. The women in the film, outside of Letty and Cipher, are still about as useless as a car with no wheels when it comes to characterization, and the words "family" and "values" are strung together more than they are on a given night of Fox News programming. But the film is sincere in all its lunacy and electric in the spectacles that bookend a good hour and a half of intriguing crime-drama, and while it doesn't justify untying the bow Furious 7 secured, watching the film is a bit of a Dom Torreto hand-on-shoulder moment as if the film is looking into your eyes with half of a grin saying, "don't worry, I got this" in a gravelly voice.
NOTE: My video review of The Fate of the Furious:
Starring: Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Charlize Theron, Dwayne Johnson, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Jason Statham, Nathalie Emmanuel, Kurt Russell, and Helen Mirren. Directed by: F. Gary Gray.
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