Now Playing: Fast Five

Oh baby, I am so relieved I saw this movie. Sadly I saw it opening weekend with a bunch of teenagers and a sorority girls that whoo’d whenever Vin Diesel was on screen. Luckily it wasn’t enough to ruin my movie experience completely. But I must come clean here, The Fast and The Furious series has been a favourite of mine for a long time. With the mixture of action, cars, babes, comedy and just plain cheesiness I’ve always loved it. Now when I found out that this movie had most of the main cast back, I had to go see it for the nostalgia. I guess I will be a bit biased, but still nitpick if they ruin the movie. And after the jump, I will explain to you my thoughts.

We start off right after Fast and Furious as Brian (Paul Walker), Mia (Jordana Brewster), Tego (Tego Calderon) and Rico (Don Omar) driving up to the bus that is transporting Dom (Diesel). After some cool driving manoeuvres they bust Dom out and free him. Brian and Mia pick up a job to earn some spare change. After a failed attempted at a car heist; Brian, Mia and Dom are the most sought after people in the world. The FBI enlists a special team to catch the trio, and the leader of the group is none other than Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson). As the trio hide in Rio and Hobbs after them, they need to pull one last job to finally be free from the life of crime. They call in a few friends to help out, and a few twists along the way make this adventure really fun to watch.

Face off between Dom and Hobbs

This movie is filled with so much awesomeness. Oh dear lord I loved this movie, it was filled with great mindless action, a funny script, super cheesy and nostalgia up the wing-wang. I’ll admit this movie won’t win any Oscars or awards but I had so much fun with it. And I am kind of glad the movie went further from car culture and more into the cool heist part. I felt a lot of “Italian Job” and “Gone in 60 Seconds” in this movie, and that is welcomed.

I was surprised at how funny this movie was. It played on a lot of nostalgia and a cheesy comedy script. Especially Roman (Tyrese Gibson), I loved him in 2F2F and loved him even more here. He plays this obnoxious, over the top, typically ‘gansta from the hood’ character, and he sells it. Han (Sung Kang) also has a good part in this movie, which is good because he is a great character in this series. He gives a cool, charismatic character, every guy wants to be him, and every girl wants him. A few others that come back were Vince (Matt Schulze) from the first movie and Tej (Ludacris) from the second movie. But to come back to the more popular characters, I loved Hobbs just because of his pure badassness. He is tough, in your face and even a bit funny from time to time. Dom was still really good in the series, especially his fight with Hobbs; he almost makes Hobbs look like a (tooth) fairy during the fight. And finally my favourite character, the pretty boy Brian. He was played just like the first and fourth movie, and it was great to see. As you can see, I loved the characters.

Brian and Dom roll up to a local race meet.

The last thing I want to point out is the action scenes. Up to now, the best action scenes are from Fast 5. They were well done in so many ways, even though they can be over the top ridiculous at times. But I think that is why I like it so much. They weren’t trying to be too realistic, because let’s face it, real life sucks and that is why we go see movies. From the car chases, to the race scenes and fights, they were all well-choreographed and well executed! The automotive part of me was asking for more race scenes, but I’m glad they didn’t try that and fail hard.

I really liked this movie, a lot. I will probably go see it again mainly due to the fact I would want to see it with less people and a better seating position. I think fans of the series will love it, just the amount of nostalgia I got from this movie won me over. Other more casual watchers might like the action but hate it for the cheesy dialogue. My final words are; go see it and try to enjoy it for what it delivers and not to expect pure perfection.

BROTIP: STAY AFTER THE CREDITS.