Fast Five

I love dumb action movies.  When they're good, they're great (Predator).  When they're bad, they're often still pretty damn amusing (Alien vs. Predator: Requiem).  Unfortunately, though, this generation of actors hasn't had the wealth of stupid action heroes that the 80s and 90s were blessed with.  Sure, Jason Statham is willing to indulge my love of inane plots and ridiculous action, but what about the other promising heroes of yesteryear?  I thought Vin Diesel was going to be this generation's Stallone, but he refused to make immediate sequels to his biggest hits (The Fast and the Furious and xXx), and wound up in a Disney movie.  I thought Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson would be our Schwarzenegger, but after a few crappy tries (The Scorpion King and Doom), he also went the Disney route.

Screen shot from Doom

What is wrong with these people?  Don't they know that I don't want to see them crack jokes?  I just want to see them try and punch something to the moon!  Is that too much to ask?

Fast Five answers my question with a reassuring smile and a sensuous back rub.  This, the fifth installment of the Fast and the Furious franchise, picks up right where Fast and Furious: Faster and Furiouser left off; Dom (Vin Diesel) is on a bus, heading to prison, while his buddy, Brian (Paul Walker), and sister, Mia (Jordana Brewster), head a team of fancy car drivers, intent on jail-breaking him.  It's the opening scene, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that they are successful.  Breaking out of jail is kind of a big deal, though, so the trio head South to Rio de Janeiro.  Once there, they find themselves strapped for cash and take an ill-advised heist job.  They were hired to steal some cars from a train, and they were going to be working with some sleazy dudes.  It turns out that the dudes worked for drug kingpin Hernan Reyes (Joaquim deAlmeida) and the cars on the train were actually his seized property; that means that the DEA is escorting the cars, too.  One thing leads to another and the good guys wind up stealing a car that has a computer chip with Reyes' drug operation basically programmed into it; in the process, though, the bad guys kill the DEA agents and place the blame on Dom and Brian.  That brings in some heavy hitters from America, like DSS agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), to bring in these rapid and angry hoodlums.  The rest of the film has the good guys on the run from the police and the drug dealers, and trying to figure out a way to turn the tables on Reyes.  Preferably, in a manner that would include cars.

...like ghost riding the whip

How's the acting in Fast Five?  Man, I'm hilarious.

Actually, the acting is about what you'd expect from a movie that is all about wrecking cars.  Vin Diesel won't win any awards for this one, but he acts tough and delivers some truly awful dialogue with enough conviction to actually sound reasonable.  This was the meanest character I have seen Dwayne Johnson play, but he was a serviceable mean good guy.  Basically, his job was to look enormous and frightening enough to make a musclehead (Diesel) look tiny, and he succeeded.

His bicep is the size of her waist

Paul Walker and Jordanna Brewster are both as uncharismatic as ever; luckily, their wooden performances happen in a movie where things go boom, so it doesn't really matter.  To put their acting in perspective, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges was more entertaining with less screen time.  Or maybe that "with" should be a "because."  Tyrese Gibson returns to the franchise as well; Tyrese is a terrible actor, but I enjoy watching him try to emote.  To his credit, he is better here than in 2 Fast 2 Furious.  Reggaeton singer Don Omar makes another appearance (he was in Fast and Furious) as one of Dominic's comic underlings; just like Ricky Ricardo back in the day, his gag is the fact that he speaks Spanish.  Hilarity ensues.  Gal Gadot also returns from the previous film, although I'm pretty sure she was a bad guy last time out.  Whatever.  Her job is to be hot.  Sung Kang also returns as the unusually laid-back illegal street racer; his character is still alive, which places the chronology of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (where he dies, two movies ago) into an even more questionable place in the space/time continuum.  Oh, and Eva Mendes has a quick cameo after the credits.  Some have compared her scene to Alec Baldwin's in Glengarry Glen Ross.  Man, I can't even type that without giggling.

Pictured above: enough acting to fill a tiny, tiny hat

Honestly, though, does any of that really matter?  These actors are just in place to provide a weak excuse for extended chase sequences.  Fast Five absolutely excels in this regard.  Who should get the credit for this?  Maybe director Justin Lin.  This is his third Furious movie, and each one is better than the last.  That doesn't take much, since Tokyo Drift is truly one of the worst movies I have ever seen, but the entertainment value of his past two films is undeniable.  Perhaps the credit should go to the stunt coordinators.  Whatever the case, Lin deserves some recognition for not letting too much character development get in the way of some pretty cool ridiculous stunts.

Waiting for a stunt, or emulating Pacino in Cruising?

Fans of the franchise should note that Fast Five maintains the homoerotic tension that made it famous.  That is why people went to see the first one, right?  This time around, it's not about Diesel and Walker, or Walker and Gibson; this movie is all about waiting for the fight scene where Diesel and The Rock would start squirming on the ground and "accidentally" start making out.  I won't spoil when or if that happens, but I think we all agree that it should.

This is what it sounds like when doves cry

As ridiculous as this movie is, I actually genuinely enjoyed Fast Five.  It's not trying to be anything but a big budget action movie, and it's a pretty solid one.  The plot, while still convoluted as all hell, makes more sense than any of the other F&F plots to date.  The stunts are pretty wicked awesome; I'm not a car guy, but some of these car stunts are spectacular.  Most importantly, the film delivers on the promise of having two of this generation's baldest and muscleiest men pound the crap out of each other.  My only complaint is that Diesel and The Rock never shook hands while flexing their biceps, like Carl Weathers and Ahhnuld did in Predator.  I won't go so far as to call this a great movie, but it is certainly fun to watch.  Fast Five is definitely the best and Furiousest film in the series to date.

 As an added bonus, here's a Vin Diesel sound board I stumbled across.  Personally, I prefer sound boards that focus on one or two words per button, but this one is still pretty fun to play with.


Vin Diesel (Sound Boards animation) | Watch more

Ninja Assassin

Every so often, a movie lets you know whether or not you will like it within the first five minutes.  If you like seeing people being sliced into bits with ridiculous amounts of obviously CGI blood on the screen, then this movie is for you.  If that doesn't sound like your cup of tea, then perhaps you shouldn't watch a movie with the words "ninja" and "assassin" in the title.  Speaking of the which, I'm pretty sure the working title was *Redundant Ninja Redundant*. 

The lead in this movie is Korean pop star Rain, known for his brief time as Stephen Colbert's nemesis

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Stephen vs. Rain
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform

as well as his role in the movie Saibogujiman Kwenchana, which translates into "I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK."  Oh Asia, how amusingly random you are.  There are other actors in this movie, with such diverse talent as Rick Yune (The Fast and the Furious) and Sung Kang (The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift).  The real talent on display though, is the violence.  This might be the most gratuitous use of stylistic violence since Riki-Oh: the Story of Ricky.  To put it another way, this movie is so ridiculously over-the-top violent that, when Rain does some sweet moves and completely cuts a man in half, you won't stop to rewind it because you just know something even bigger will happen in a few minutes.  I have to say that this film embraces ridiculous violence with more joy than any new release in years; the amount of blood makes even Kill Bill: Volume 1 look realistic.  It's not a huge surprise, coming from director James McTeigue (V For Vendetta), but it is a pleasant one.

What?  You want a plot?  It's called Ninja Assassin!  What do you expect, a script by a Hugo Award winner?  Well, that's what you get from two-time winner and top-tier comic book writer J. Michael Straczynski.  Apparently, JMS opted to forget about his writing history when co-writing this script, but it does have about half of the movie (45 minutes) devoted to plot development.  Apparently, ninja clans kidnap orphans and raise them to be ninjas.  Training to be a ninja isn't much fun.  Frowny face emoticon!  In some states, it might even border on child abuse.  Rain decides to rebel, which means killing his entire clan.  Of course it does.  There are some British people that act as point of view characters, but they are ultimately disposable.  Unfortunately, they manage to get the British military involved, so there is a scene where ninjas fight tanks and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare-esque ground troops without the benefit of shadows.  That sucks.  But it's the only action scene that doesn't fully deliver.

What do you get with this movie?  About 45 minutes or so of super violent death and dismemberment.  Sure, there's a plot, but it's not important.  Go make some popcorn or go on a beer run (just don't leave until the first scene is over).  By the time you're done, things will be just about ready to rock.  Sure, they needlessly lengthen the movie by shoehorning a plot into it, but this is a film that knows exactly what it is (Hollywood pitch: "Ninjas kill stuff --- the movie!") and delivers with a smile.  I just wish the whole movie was as totally awesome as the opening scene.