Fast Five 2011 Justin Lin

How is it possible that the fifth film in a series is any good?  Even stupid good?  That just doesn't happen.  Except for here.  This movie is good.  Stupid good, but still good.  They brought back everybody!  And I mean EVERYBODY!  Well, except for Lucas Black and Lil" Bow Wow, but c'mon... Why would they all want to be in another Fast and Furious movie?  Because they're dumb fun, that's why. 

So what's behind this latest version of Smash-em Up Derby?  Not street racing, that's for sure.  There's only one street race setup like in the other movies and it's treated like a throwaway.  For this one, everybody's on the run and being all criminal-like to survive.  They're in Rio de Janeiro and get double crossed by worse Brazillian criminals.  That causes the Feds to come to Rio looking for them, which means they have both the Feds and Brazillian criminals after them.  Will American Criminality rise to the occasion?  Or will American Justice save the day?  Or will Brazillian criminals beat both elements of American culture into the ground?

On the American Criminal side, we have Dominic Toretto (Mark "Vin Diesel" Vincent, Saving Private Ryan), Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker, Monster in the Closet), and little sis Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster, The Faculty), along with people from the other movies - Part 2 (Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Crash and Tyrese Gibson, That Coke Commercial Where He Sang The Jingle On The Bus), Part 3 (Sung Kang, Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift), and Part 4 (Who cares?).  They want to even the score with the Brazillian crime boss (Joaquim de Almeida, Desperado) who doublecrossed them by stealing all his money.

On the American Law side, we have Luke Hobbs (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Wrestlemania 13), head of the Feds charged with bringing in all the bad car racers.  He has a rookie Brazillian cop with him as translator, and a bunch of heavily armed interchangeable Federal Officers that are there to be killed.

On the Brazillian Crime side, there's the crime lord and his City of God thugs.  Everyone in the Rio favelas has a gun and they're shooting at everybody.

It gets a little too talky sometimes - nobody comes to these movies to see Vin Diesel or Paul Walker act, for god's sake!  But then the car chases start and it becomes awesome.  The final heist/chase sequence is the best thing in the history of these movies.  Seriously, go see it for that alone. It is sort of funny to see The Rock act everyone else off the screen.  But it's also a stroke of genius to change these movies up from street racing to Gearhead Mission Impossible.  I'll definitely go see the next one, even if it means I have to see Vin Diesel emote.  It's all worth it.