Review - Fast Five

Fast Five (2011), PG-13, 130 minutes - The fifth installment in the Fast and the Furious franchise has been out for a couple weeks now and seeing as though I was talked into checking it out in the theater by multiple friends who had already seen it, I'm going to keep this short because quite honestly, I think I'm about the last person to see it amongst the folks that tune in to this blog.

Fast Five takes a page from the Ocean's movies. It really is a heist flick that happens to have a couple car related scenes in it. The commercials tout it as having many chase sequences, but there's really only one at the climax of the film. This isn't necessarily a bad thing though as the banter between members of the crew while planning the heist is really what carries the movie.

Stars from the first four movies come back to pull off a heist to retire off of. All while jumping to the top of America's Most Wanted list (mostly for crimes they didn't actually commit). I'm not a Fast and the Furious franchise continuity buff, but as far as I know at least one character that died in a previous installment showed up. I've been told that this film takes place somewhere in between the previous four continuity-wise, but I don't know where for sure.

When it comes right down to it, Fast Five is a great summer popcorn flick. The action scenes are huge and entertaining, if not completely laughable. I must admit that it was nice to see Dwayne Johnson (The Rock) in a knock down, drag out fight with Vin Diesel. Seeing a character played by The Rock being challenged physically was a breath of fresh air.

I must admit, Fast Five played out much better than I had anticipated. It wasn't something that I was going out of my way to see, but I'm glad I tagged along yesterday evening. It definitely falls under the guilty pleasure category. For those who have not yet seen it, there's a post credits sequence that teases yet another installment to come. I didn't see it myself, but two of my friends did.