Fast Five: A satisfying sequel!

After Brian and Mia break Dom out of prison they try to stay one step ahead of the law. This eventually leads them to Rio de Janeiro where they run afoul of a powerful local drug lord named Reyes. In order to gain their freedom and stop Reyes from hunting them, they need to pull one last job. Little do they know that even as they assemble their team a hard nosed federal agent named Luke Hobbs is on their tail, looking to capture them.

When a film series hits its fifth installment, chances are it is so much like the previous films, in characters, story and actions, that it boarders on ridiculousness and cliche (see the Friday the 13th, Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street series for examples of this). In light of this, it is shocking that The Fast and Furious franchise has reached a fifth film, given the fact that all of the subsequent sequels to the 2001 original have been lacking in originality and entertainment.

So why should you check out Fast Five? For starters, the action was intense and constant. Not only were there the expected car chases/stunt sequences (the most insane of which involved Dom and Brian tearing up the streets of Rio with the bad guy's safe in the finale) but a number of fight sequences that were unusually effective. Beyond the sequences that most action fans were hoping to see in the film what helped to set this sequel apart from its predecessors was the story and characters. Director Justin Lin did well to make sure they satisfied the conventions that fans of the series were expecting while, at the same time, expanding upon those conventions and characters so that Fast Five was not just another brainless retread. Framing the story around the caper that Dom, Brian and the rest of team were trying to pull not only allowed for some Ocean's Eleven type caper action, but also for the cast (including a number of familiar faces from the previous films) to provide some memorable performances that made their characters easy for the audience to connect with. Add to that an absolutely show-stopping performance by Dwayne Johnson as Luke Hobbs (the parts where he and Diesel squared off were epic) and you can start to see why this sequel merits at least one viewing.

Taken for the good old fashioned popcorn action flick it is meant to be, Fast Five was a satisfying sequel with plenty of action but also surprising depth of character and story.

Grade: B

Legion: When good premises go bad

A group of survivors has taken shelter at a truck stop after the apocalypse. All hope seems to be lost until they are visited by the archangel Michael, who has joined them in order to protect one of the survivors who is baring the Messiah.

The premise behind this film was that God was angry and had essentially lost faith in all of human kind. Therefore he unleashed the apocalypse in order to rid the world of most of the bad apples and start again. Michael intercedes in this for he loves mankind and believes that man can change. On paper the film sounded like it could have been an intense theological thriller, however you do not watch a film on paper. Legion failed on every level to be anything close to entertaining. The characters were unlikable, so much so one halfway through the film one started hoping that God’s little reboot would work. The story was never fully developed and the plot had major holes in it. So director Scott Charles Stewart decided to see how many inept shoot outs or car crashes he could plaster on the screen in order to kill the rest of the film’s running time when the characters weren’t emotionally bashing one another or spouting dialogue for which the term “dreadful” would be complimentary. Worst of all he turned the character of Michael into a pseudo “Terminator” who seemed more worried about killing folks than protecting the mother of the Messiah and carried more guns than a Special Forces unit.

Uninspired, dull and silly, Legion was an insipid waste of time.


Grade: D-