Fast & Furious

Ultimately there really wasn't any need to make yet another movie in this series. But, I guess if you can get the money to get the original crew together you might as well give it another go. And it did great box office this weekend. I anticipate a major drop off though.

The Fast & The Furious was a good movie, with some great action sequences, and a good young cast. The end of it left a small opening for a sequel but, it also left limited room for what that sequel could be if it was to include Vin Diesel's character. Honestly it left little room for story ideas outside of Paul Walker's character. Which is why 2 Fast 2 Furious worked since it was centered around his character.

So it really wasn't surprising that the new one involved Dom (Vin Diesel) still being on the run from the law and up to some of his old tricks in Mexico. It was cool that Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) got to do the real stunts in the opening sequence rather than just being the driver. From there however, the set up for the rest of the story was disappointing. And the rest of the movie was disappointing. Mainly it was disappointing in it's lack of car races.

The premise of using fast cars to run drugs across the border was plausible but, not executed very well. It felt like there was a lot more they could have done. They really could have incorporated some sort of actual race with it so there was more racing and cool cars. I know it's kinda been done a lot but, lets get real what hasn't been done a lot these days?

I was very disappointed at how little both Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster were in this one. It was hardly worth the effort or money they probably put into getting them.


Major spoilers:


Pissed doesn't even begin to describe my feelings over them killing Michelle's character. At least she got to do the cool opening sequence but, we never got to see her behind the wheel and they could have set up a better story keeping her character around. It's very clear that they decided there was some fan base to her and Jordana and that's why they got them to come back just for the publicity appeal of having the "big 4" back.

Jordana was again under utilized in this movie. She was wasted more this time than in the original. And she didn't even get to do any cool driving until the very last scene of the movie. In this new era of female race car drivers not letting the girls drive is unacceptable.

The drug running was a good idea but, as mentioned earlier done completely wrong. The only race in the movie was for them to get the open seat as one of the drivers. That part was good and they should have done more. After all that is the point of the original and the one thing that should always be included. This movie was more just "look at the fast cars" a lot of the time.

When they actually went to run the drugs all they did was drive in a straight line across the desert one car behind the other and then into a tunnel where they had to play follow the leader. Very poor story development there. They could have done a thing where some people where running drugs during some big race or they could have had the drugs in one car and the cops were trying to stay on the one with the drugs but, no they think the big excitement is a bunch of cars driving in single file trying to avoid camera detection.

The big chase scene at the end was decent but, not enough to save the movie.



I saw the movie at a matinee and it was barely worth the price. Just wait for the discount theaters or dvd.