Hey folks, Harry here with a film that I guiltily want to see badly this summer... FAST AND THE FURIOUS. I don't know... Maybe it's a pathological gut impulse to hear Vin Diesel's voice in super-digital-sound resonating with the roar of an engine... Maybe it's because of this strange tingle along my spine that makes me think this film might be cool. After all... Universal moved it from the spring to hot damn sizzling popping into the summer frying pan... Which means they either want to bury it or let it sizzle... We'll see, I've seen negatives over at Dark Horizons, so balance your enthusiasm (if you have it) and let's see for ourselves this summer!
First time writer, long time visitor here Harry. First off, let me say that I'm an employee of a large theatre chain, can I say Marcus Theatres on here? and I just plain love movies. I mean...I'm no expert or anything, but I just love them. Something about being able to sit down for two hours and immerse yourself in another world just gets me going in the morning.
Anywho...tonight I got the oppurtunity to see the upcoming Fast and the Furious about a month before release. The guy who came in from Universal was really nice and said that this was the first test screening for the finished film, so needless to say I was PUMPED! The titles sequence is pretty nice w/ a lot of jump cutting of the name and then off to a harbor where the film begins. The movie starts off fast. The opening scene is of a truck w/ stolen equipment being jacked by three green honda civics, if I remember correctly. These cars are SWEET! Everything that the trailer puts up for you is brought through in the first five minutes. They use some gadgetry to get into the 'cockpit' of the truck and then drive it away. VERY cool cutting between all of the cars and finally, once they get control, they run through a bunch of construction work to escape.
Now that I've given the opening sequence a spin, I'll just give my reaction to the rest of the film. Well...it was fast. Vin Diesel's character is a take nothing from noone kind of guy who likes to race things incredibly fast. He is all about the speed and will do anything to get to his goal of winning. After that we are introduced to Paul Walker's character, Brian. He is a guy who works at a local "high performance" shop and ends up getting in trouble with his boss after fighting w/ one of Vin's friends. Michelle Rodriguez's character is Vin's girlfriend and her acting was...well...just like in Girlfight. SOmetimes she is good, other times she is awfully bad. There really is no inbetween for her, which is a shame. But I do think that she might have a future ahead of her if she keeps going on this path. The rest of the supporting cast including Jordana Brewster are standard good/bad guys that don't really stand out, but have a good niche in the film as well.
Now, I'm sure that once the acting is out of the way, everyone wants to know about the cars? RIGHT? Well...I'm not an expert of anything cars, but let me tell you...these things are SWEET! Take the coolest car that you've ever seen and multiply it times 100. There is so much fun car stuff in this movie that it made me want to cry motor oil. And they, thankfully, did not go the route of using cheap knock offs either. They used the real thing and boy does it show in the races. The shine and the look on the people's faces while driving these machines is priceless stuff. Gone in 60 seconds, the remake, could have been like this, but it failed in this category. FATF just blows any other car movie out of the water with the equipment that they brought in. One of the street races actually has them lined up for about a mile on both sides of the street to watch a couple of the characters go at each other at speeds topping 160 MPH!
After all is said and done with the acting and the cars, you have to step back and say to yourself, is this a good movie? I would say that yes, it was a lot of fun and a good overall film. Why? Because I could relate and fall in love with the characters. They gave them all enough background and screen time so that you felt you got to know who they are and they weren't just there as fillers. When they hurt, you felt it. It wasn't just an action film, it was a good story driven flick also.
Overall, I'd give it at least 3 or 3.5 stars just because it didn't take itself too seriously, it was a LOT of fun, and it just felt like a really good action-driven summer flick.
Steve-o.
P.S. THANKS FOR MAKING SUCH A GREAT SITE! KEEP STICKING UP FOR THE LITTLE GUY!
:)
