What I liked: This is the first Fast and Furious movie I have seen but I have watched a number of the trailers. They always teemed with absurdity. Now instead of a 3 minute trailer, I got to sit through an hour and a half of turbo powered sports cars saving the world. As you can imagine the list of things to like is quite long. The movie starts off strong with a car race in Havanah (I guess that US-Cuban relations are going really well if a FBI agent is having his honeymoon there). The reason for the car race was a bit complicated but essentially the main dude was trying to win back his cousin's car. In the course of the race he manages to light it on fire, explode it, and launch it into the ocean. But at least he won it back. I'm sure his cousin was very grateful. I also find it noteworthy that the race was 1 mile long and took 11 minutes to complete. The moral of this story is that while both racers are excellent at theatrics, they take safety seriously. After blowing up Berlin for some unknown reason, which is less to like, we move on to a truly phenomenal car chase scene. For equally unknown but likely unrelated reasons a Russian government official is riding around in an indestructible limo with a giant machine gun. This limo is ambushed by an entire army of hacked cars that fly out of parking garages in a hail of surprisingly less permanent destruction. Everything about the assault on a Russian military installation is to love. I love that they led the attack with an orange Lamborghini. I love that an EMP knocked out all the mechanical defense features of the base. I love that the bad guy was able to computer hack a cold war Russian sub out of dry dock. I love that the flashy sports cars get to race not only the Russian snow tanks but also the newly liberated nuclear submarine. I especially love that when the submarine launches torpedoes at the sports cars the heroes are able to redirect them by hand, literally, to blow up the snow tanks. Again, despite the tanks, subs, and torpedoes, the 4 mile race takes 23 minute to complete (just over 10mph). The moral of this story is always put on snow tires before attacking a Russian military base. Finally, I love the rather inexplicable airborne rescue mission. The guys fly in on F16 jet packs, they rescue a baby, who they give very fancy noise cancelling headphones so he won't be disturbed by the subsequent firefight.
What I didn't: With all the exciting scenes there was just so much that was left unexplained and there may have been some inconsistencies. For example, when the characters talk on their walkie talkies do they need to push the button? Do they need to hold the walkie talkie? Do they even need to possess or even be in the vicinity of a walkie talkie? Why does a giant harpoon gun only pull the door off cars after people punch the the door? How are the bumpers on these cars so securely attached? I am not very impressed by anyone's ability to plan. If the people did not hand over the nuclear launch codes and you did throw dynamite in the gas tank what was your back up plan? Find other launch codes? Let your GUI based hacking system crack the codes? If you breach an airplane with jetpacks and save an infant in a car seat how are you planning on getting off the airplane? Also what happened to the other guy who came on the airplane with you? How did the sports cars get to Siberia? If we were going to air drop them why not just bomb the base or at least drop them closer to the base? Where can I buy these sports cars that can withstand torpedoes and antiaircraft fire? Also why didn't the Russian military invest in these cars, their cars get blown up by normal machine gun fire. And the perennial question, where do bad guys find their minions? Is there an evil henchman Costco somewhere where they go and get them wholesale?
Who should watch this? People who want an hour and a half of explosions loosely held together by terrible dialogue and bad acting.
Would I watch it again? For a red eye plane ride it hit the spot. I doubt it would have quite the same effect in another setting.
Phenomenal review! I feel all the excitement of the racing and explosions, and I'm left to ponder walkie talkie functionality.
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