Fast and the Furious 4: Review

With the launch of the fifth installment of the Fast and the Furious franchise today, I am turning back the clock one more time for the review of Fast and the Furious 4.

It’s late, I know, but with how bad the first three were, I put this off for almost two weeks.

In case you haven’t been reading the first three reviews, here’s a quick recap– they sucked.

For the most part, they seemed to have been made with the idea of making money rather than putting anything of substance into the films.

So here I am trying so hard not to watch this movie, until it finally came time to suck it up and put the DVD in.

I watched it. And I can’t say I liked it or would want to watch it again, but it was so much better than the others it was astounding.

The dialogue was almost average (huge upgrade!). The story line had– dare I say it– some depth and even emotion, which were both completely missing from the first three Fast and Vacuous films.

For the first time in the series they had someone edit the film, who didn’t have some sort of attention deficit disorder.

There wasn’t too much car like in Tokyo Drift and more than 2 Fast 2 Furious which would go on 20 minute we forgot this was supposed to be a car movie amnesia bouts.

It was nice to have most of the main players from the first film back and I thought it was a nice twist to kill of Michelle Rodriguez, mostly because her face bothers me. I mean really, look at her face, if it doesn’t bother you, go to the doctor. Immediately.

4 actually got me excited to see the new one. That and I am a reformed wrestling fan and I can’t wait to see The Rock layeth the smacketh down on some of these Jabronis like Diesel and Walker.

Having said a series of good things about the movie, I need to regain my snob status by bashing the living hell out of it.

So here’s what was wrong with this one:

Within the first five minutes, we are in four different countries. For no reason, I might add.

First off, we open the movie with a holy WTF moment, when the asian guy who died in three is back to living in four like he did not blow up in Tokyo.

Apparently, when you die in a horrible movie you aren’t allowed into Heaven so you must hang out with Vin Diesel in the Dominican Republic, which I’m sure is pretty close to hell. The Vin Diesel part at least.

The return of NOS after a two movie hiatus. Maybe they got some of their money back.

Then there’s a moment that defies the space time continuum. A guy inside a truck goes from the cab to the bed in a split second, without ever moving– it’s like some Criss Angel shit.

To cap off the first scene, Diesel perfectly drifts his car under a fuel tanker that is rolling down a hill on its side, while on fire. No big deal.

Following this near death slide, there is the first sighting of emotion in the series when Rodriguez tells Diesel that she’s worried about him. It’s a good thing they kill her, we can’t have emotion in this movie.

For the sake of entertainment, let’s pretend for a moment that we can buy all the stuff that has happened up until this point. I know it’s tough, but go with me on this. It’ll make this next game that much more fun.

The game is called:

What is More Unbelievable?

• Paul Walker tackles a suspect off–what seems to be– a three story building and onto the hood of a car with no injuries.
• Vin Diesel having a graphic flashback of a murder her never witnessed.
• Diesel knows that a powder, apparently skimmed over by the homicide unit, is natural meth. Then he know that the one meth dealer in Los Angeles.
• There’s only one meth dealer in Los Angeles.
• Driving 100+ mph on city streets during traffic.
• A GPS that works.
• The fact that the people who are watching the race at the start, beat the racers to the finish line five miles away. Yet they still celebrate Diesel as the winner, despite arriving after nearly 30-50 spectators.
• Walker and Diesel stole 60 million dollars worth of meth and then hid it in a police impound lot. Then they stole a different car from the lot to drive off in.
• That Walker and Jordana Brewster start banging again, even though Walker literally ruined everyone’s life in the first film.
• The fact that they are going to knock off a Police Bus to steal Diesel out of custody.

I don’t know which one is more unreal, nor do I care that much, but seriously some of this was flat out ridiculous.

Anyway, I’m pretty pumped to see The Rock, I mean Fast Five. So get ready for that sometime next week.