Fast and Furious Review
Saturday, April 4. 2009
By now, the Fast/Furious series has settled into a familiar pattern: fast cars, hot women, loud soundtrack, and unsafe driving. Fortunately, "familiar" does not equal "boring," and the most recent offering is probably the best so far. Fast and Furious brings us back to the Vin Diesel/Paul Walker dynamic, and does a nice job of filling us in on what was going on with both of them during 2Fast/2Furious and Tokyo Drift (including an especially nice cameo by Sung Kang reprising his role as Han Lue, one of the few really good characters in Tokyo Drift).
I also enjoyed the many nods to other car movies and the classic American Muscle culture. These included a NASCAR-inspired Grand National, Hot Rod magazine's "Project F-Bomb"'73 Camaro, an "Eleanor" package on a yellow Mustang (giving us a twofer), a "Bandit" Firebird T/A, and a dark green '72 Gran Torino. Yes, many of these cars get wrecked to some degree, but let's not pretend that they were pristine numbers-matching beauties. Most of these were barn finds with enough Bondo to look good on the screen.
In the end, your enjoyment of this movie is going to depend a lot on your expectations. If you hate the Fast/Furious movies and everything about them, this one likely won't change your mind. If you've seen and enjoyed at least one of the previous three movies, you'll enjoy this one as well and I recommend you check it out.
I also enjoyed the many nods to other car movies and the classic American Muscle culture. These included a NASCAR-inspired Grand National, Hot Rod magazine's "Project F-Bomb"'73 Camaro, an "Eleanor" package on a yellow Mustang (giving us a twofer), a "Bandit" Firebird T/A, and a dark green '72 Gran Torino. Yes, many of these cars get wrecked to some degree, but let's not pretend that they were pristine numbers-matching beauties. Most of these were barn finds with enough Bondo to look good on the screen.
In the end, your enjoyment of this movie is going to depend a lot on your expectations. If you hate the Fast/Furious movies and everything about them, this one likely won't change your mind. If you've seen and enjoyed at least one of the previous three movies, you'll enjoy this one as well and I recommend you check it out.
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