Fast Five: Review

Rev up those engines, the boys of The Fast and The Furious movies are back and this time they brought along Dwayne "The Rock" with them.

Dom Toretto has been sentenced to life imprisonment but ex cop and now partner Brian O'Conner helps break him out and the head off to Rio, where they get involved in a job of stealing three cars from a moving train. They soon find out that they are being set up and they steal one of the cars which has a hidden item that local drug kingpin wants back. With revenge in their sights, Toretto and O'Conner pull together a tema in order to steal 100 million dollars from the boss but top cop Hobbs is on their case.

Full of subtle nuances and character examinations...hang on, it's a Fast and the Furious film. There's no time for subtlety. This is loud and in-your-face from the off and is relentless in its dumbness. Vin Diesel returns and still lacks any real acting skills as does plank of wood Paul Walker. Thank goodness then for Dwayne Johnson, who, sporting a goaty and beefed up to the max, at least brings a freshness to the series, squaring up to Diesel in a testosterone-fuelled fight scene.

There's plenty of action sequences to keep those who like their films visual. The train sequence is both exciting and well executed while the final chase scene has more crushed metal than a scrapyard. What is missing from the fifth instalment is the street racing and with one in which Diesel and Walker race police cars, that's about your lot. (There is the mention of another but it's never shown).

This isn't for those looking for some sense of depth. It is for those who love their fast cars and half-naked women and who can sit through lines like "Nice legs. When are they open?" and think they are Shakespearian. At 2 hours and 10 mins it is the longest of the series and does suffer for it with plenty of filling as we wait for the heist that the film has been building to. It could have been edited down by 30 mins and it would have been a quicker, crisper movie but if you put your brain into neutral, see it on a big screen with big sound, you will probably enjoy it and I can say that this is the best of the series.

Not a masterpiece but then it was never going to be anything else but stupid fun and it delivers that, and then some.