In the Flesh: Fast Five

Right out of the gate Fast 5 makes it clear that it’s abandoning the leanness of Tokyo Drift altogether for the absurd superheroics of Fast and Furious, its immediate predecessor. Armored cars ramming bank vaults, twin muscle cars hauling a ten-ton safe attached to high-tension cables through the streets of Rio de Janeiro, the Rock taking scalps as hardass FBI agent Luke Hobbs, and Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) whipping the aforementioned safe through a fleet of corrupt cops and cartel thugs like he’s playing ball-in-a-cup — it’s one ACME rocket short of a Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoon. Vin Diesel himself is the only element here that’s really been toned down, his once coolly deadly character softened by becoming a papa bear figure to Brian (Paul Walker) and Mia’s (Jordana Brewster) unborn child.

In fact the whole movie, fun as it is, is basically a showcase for the extremely limited imaginations of its creators, who can only imagine a happy ending in the form of near-identical domestic bliss for every single one of its characters. Chris Morgan’s script is blunt and fast-moving, juggling a stereotypical heist with action scenes and brief — and largely ineffectual — character moments. The characters are largely interchangeable, the thrill of seeing Justin Lin construct basically competent shots has worn a little thin, and there’s a good deal more so-so CGI here than in previous films, but even so it succeeds as entertainment on the sheer gutsy stupidity of bringing in the Rock as a sort of Vin Diesel-er Vin Diesel. His Pokemon evolution, in a manner of speaking.

I don’t know why every character is suddenly a firearms expert and master of hand-to-hand combat. I don’t know why international drug dealers and tyrannical crime bosses are shipping state-of-the-art tech inside classic cars, the literal only thing that might attract Dom Toretto and his gang. I don’t know why car fu is more powerful than rocket launchers, or why agent Hobbs goes from amoral government truncheon to stodgy but fair-minded badass in the space of one scene, but all of that is beside the point. It’s fun to watch all this stupid shit happen. It rules that they put the Rock in a very big car so that we don’t forget he himself is big while he’s driving. All the rest of the tedious crap and thin writing is forgivable in that light.