Fast & Furious 6 (2013)

Another re-post as we move into the next movie in the Fast and the Furious franchise. It’s Fast and Furious 6! Right when thought Fast Five was some crazy stuff, this one brings in some even bigger and better fun! Check out my review! Not much as changed from how I feel about it. I edited a few little mistakes and fixed up the pictures a little.

Are you excited? Furious 7 review going up any time within the next 12 hours 😉

Tranquil Dreams

My boyfriend and I finally got to the last movie of May that was on our hit list.  its one that is the top one on my list for the summer, Fast & Furious 6.  Being at the theatre almost every week makes all the commercials feel long, but then the previews were different with the new World War Z trailer and the new Pacific Rim trailer.  Nothing beats the moment Fast & Furious 6 started and we pick up right where Fast Five ended 😉

Director: Justin Lin

Cast: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Dwayne Johnson, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Michelle Rodriguez, Sung Kang, Gal Gadot, Luke Evans, Gina Carano, Joe Taslim

Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) start off this movie almost like how this last one ended up with a race.  Except this time, we see them…

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Fast Five (2011)

Moving right along with the Fast and the Furious franchise. Here is the Fast Five review written in 2013 in anticipation of Furious 6 movie! I fixed up a little bit of the mistakes here and there. Overall, this is one of the posts I’ve liked the most that I’ve written. Fast Five is also one of my favorite movies in the franchise. Its just pure fun and awesome! 🙂

What did you think of Fast Five?

Tranquil Dreams

I’m a huge fan for (most of) the Fast and the Furious movies! This comes when you date a guy who is crazy about anything related to cars.  Fast & Furious is just all about adrenaline and cars and whatnot.  Its nothing to be raving about sophistication but its usually a fun ride, although there are a few exceptions in the franchise that I’m not exactly a big fan of but whenever I hear of a new one coming out, it always gets me all excited! With Fast Six just around the corner, my boyfriend gave me a choice to rewatch Iron Man 1 &2 or this…and I guess I was more into this at the moment 😉

Director: Justin Lin

Cast: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Sung Kang, Ludacris, Gal Gadot, Tego Calderon, Don Omar

After rescuing Dominic…

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Fast & Furious (2009)

Fast & Furious was the first one in this series that I went to go see at the theatres.  It probably also marked the time when I actually watched those previous 3 for the first time in a mini marathon to prepare for this.  I’ve always liked racing car games because of Gran Turismo so this appealed to me, its just my family was never into these sorts of movies before my boyfriend came into my life in 2008.

After the mega disappointment of the third one, excuse me when I was a little worried about how the 4th one would go.  I’m more of half cup full type of person, so I went to this with hopes that it would at least measure up to the first one. Did it meet my expectations? How about on this rewatch?

Let’s check it out! 🙂

Fast & Furious (2009)

Director: Justin Lin

Cast: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Michelle Rodriguez, Gal Gadot, Sung Kang, Don Omar, Tego Caldaron

After their last heist, Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) leaves everyone by himself because the heat was a little too much and he worried about causing dangers to his loved ones.  Thats until, he gets a call from Mia (Jordana Brewster) that Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) was murdered.  Without another thought, he comes back to find out who killed her and to avenge her death.  This is when reinstated FBI, Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) crosses his path again both learning that a drug trafficking lord, Braga is behind all this and they both try to get into their crew with their own end goals.

If you ever want to reboot a series, this is exactly how you do it: Make it into an adrenaline pumping, high energy action film with the original cast doing what they do best.  There’s familiarity, fun, excitement and intensity all wrapped into one fantastic film.  I mean, fantastic in terms of the Fast and the Furious franchise, of course.  The love for this franchise is in its own category and it all starts with this one as Justin Lin, much to my surprise takes the series into a whole different style but with the original cast, it brings back exactly what was needed to make this film crazy.  It was crazy ridiculous.  Just the opening scene was enough to know exactly what tone this movie was aiming for. And I like it.  I like it a whole lot!

I’ve said it in the previous reviews for this franchise and I say it again.  Vin Diesel is the cornerstone of what makes this franchise good. He’s just a monumental man that honestly brings in his own style.  Sure, he doesn’t have a whole lot to say and its all emoted in his face and reactions, the one-liners here and there but somehow it works for him.  This time around, Brian O’Conner’s character gets a lot more depth because he has to deal with who he wants to be and to be honest with himself.  There is no doubt that Dom is a character that we love and respect. I have to admit, this was the movie where I really started loving the character of Brian O’Conner because he seems perfectly happy even if it meant breaking out of the good guy path because maybe he was just a pretending to be the good guy (paraphrasing a line in the movie said by Jordana Brewster’s Mia).

Fast & Furious also brings in a new lady here, Gisele (who we see in later movies in the franchise).  She’s not a bad character.  Although she does ride with Braga’s crew.  Still, she adds a little balance to the spectrum because she isn’t a bad character and there’s space for her to develop.  Its pretty fun because she really is attracted to Dom and it adds a little chemistry there.  I mean, Fast and Furious franchise probably has the best bromance chemistry ever but love isn’t all that abundant, not that its a fault.  It works to keep the situation simple and just enjoy the crazy action sequences.

Overall, Fast & Furious is our first step into suspending our disbelief in this franchise.  Things didn’t always make sense in the last three but this one is where you know that its going over the top and just high adrenaline fun. Turn your brain off and enjoy the story.  It adds a little drama with Letty being gone and the reuniting of Mia and Dom then Mia and Brian and of course, the bromance between Brian and Dom.  There’s flashy cars and great races.  Its a little vengeful and some new characters.  The villain, Braga is alright because he’s pretty much a mystery throughout the whole flick.  There’s a lot that I love about this one and it has to do with how it made me start falling in love with this franchise and Paul Walker’s Brian.  Not my fave but definitely somewhere on the top.

Have you seen Fast & Furious? What do you think about it? How would you rank it in the franchise?

Remember to check out the previous reviews if you haven’t and drop by again for Fast Five coming really soon (probably later today)!

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)

And we’re here moving the Fast and the Furious series to Japan with no one of consequence from before.  Nothing but cars and they don’t even do drag race, they just drift.

Before we start, for me to rewatch this one is ONLY because Furious 6 decided that it was going to loop by to make this one relevant in Furious 7.  This one was my most despised from this entire series and if you think otherwise, I’ll just look at you and blink in confusion but that’s okay.  I give second chances, and here is Tokyo Drift’s second chance to impress me, now that its become relevant. Kind of.

Let’s check it out! *hesitates before pressing play*

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)

Director: Justin Lin

Cast: Lucas Black, Nathalie Kelley, Sung Kang, Brian Tee, Shad Moss

Sean Boswell (Lucas Black) is a rebellious kid.  His actions and desire to mostly street race in a destructive way has caused him to be in a lot of trouble and because of all this, him and his mom has had to move from city to city so that he can actually go to school. When his lastest illegal street race against his school rival destroys a housing project along as totalling his car, his mom sends him off to Japan with his father who is in the military to avoid jail time. Although his father sets rules for him to follow and forbids him to ever touch a car, he ends up messing with the nephew of the mafia and his girl.  To his surprise, Tokyo racing is all about drifting and he knows nothing about that.  When he totals Han’s car, Han takes him in to not only recover his debt to pay off the car he destroyed but also, to teach him a thing or two about how things work in Tokyo.

What the hell did I just write? Before we do this, let me tell you, watching this movie took a whole lot of junk food and writing those previous two Fast and Furious posts to get through it. Because it just wasted my time and I ended up hating it even more.  I’m keeping this short with a few points…

THE GOOD #1 : HAN

Han is one of my favorite characters in the Fast and Furious franchise.  I didn’t feel relevant because in the next one, he shows up again, making it seem like they wanted to forget the existence of Tokyo Drift.  I wonder if Justin Lin intended for this the whole time.

THE BAD #1: SEAN

There is no part of me that likes this character. For one, that accent is atrocious and he kind of loses it in parts (at least it seems like it). And then he’s not even good looking enough for all these hot chicks to go for.  Is it because he totals car that makes him attractive?  Bad boys are great because they have charm or something, this guy has nothing.  Nothing at all. I hate his face, his character, his voice….and I had to watch him throughout this entire thing. His main fault: not learning from his mistakes. Stop falling for the wrong girls! Just STOP!

THE GOOD #2: THE CARS

Being set in Japan, the cars were all really great.  They just looked awesome.  I think my boyfriend said that some things didn’t make a lot of sense during the racing but the cars were quite good? I could be wrong but the racing sequences were alright.

THE BAD #2: D.K.

According to me, Tokyo Drift has no villains.  This DK character was a villain? Why? Because he was trying to keep a girl that his family took care of after her mom passed away? Or because his uncle was the mafia? He is a nobody.  Not intimidating.  His crew wasn’t either.  You know what he was? He was annoying…

THE GOOD #3: VIN DIESEL CAMEO

This was the highlight of this movie.  It was knowing that Vin Diesel was coming back to the franchise.  Vin Diesel is the Fast and the Furious franchise and he makes everything awesome even if he shows up for like 10 seconds. At least now we know why he showed his face, right? (or you do if you saw Furious 7)

THE BAD #3: NEELA

Neela & DK

Neela and DK are at similar levels of emptiness for me. I wonder what these two boys see in her. I mean, she’s the reason ALL OF THIS *waving the movie DVD case around* happened.  If she didn’t go and chat up Sean knowing her own boyfriend’s possessiveness, the rival wouldn’t have started. Plus, she was nothing special.  Because she can drift cars? Or she has amazing personality? Not really.  The story didn’t develop her character (or any other ones much). Look, I can be really forgiving of random people being attracted to each other and love stories.  I enjoy Nicholas Sparks movies, okay? I can believe almost anything, as cliche as they get.  This one…I just don’t think she’s all that great.

Why did I never pick this for Shitfest, right? The story was pretty much nothing.  The characters weren’t developed and I really dread watching this again.  I guess its because I didn’t want to put Sung Kang (aka Han) into the crap pile.  He deserves more than that.  Plus, Vin Diesel’s cameo makes up for a lot of unhappy feelings.

Anyways, point is: Tokyo Drift is my least favorite in the Fast and Furious franchise.  Even though, its made relevant now because of Furious 6 and 7, its still not exactly relevant.  I’d forego it if I were to watch this series. I’m done with this one. I have nothing else to say.

Have you seen Tokyo Drift? Did you like it? If you did, please tell me why.

Fast & Furious 6 (2013)

My boyfriend and I finally got to the last movie of May that was on our hit list.  its one that is the top one on my list for the summer, Fast & Furious 6.  Being at the theatre almost every week makes all the commercials feel long, but then the previews were different with the new World War Z trailer and the new Pacific Rim trailer.  Nothing beats the moment Fast & Furious 6 started and we pick up right where Fast Five ended 😉

Director: Justin Lin

Cast: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Dwayne Johnson, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Michelle Rodriguez, Sung Kang, Gal Gadot, Luke Evans, Gina Carano, Joe Taslim

Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) start off this movie almost like how this last one ended up with a race.  Except this time, we see them settle down as Mia (Jordana Brewster) has her little baby.  Good times can’t last forever and just when they had decided to not go those crazy projects again, Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) comes by with another assignment for them but this time with a bigger bait to reunite the family.  Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) was spotted as part of a major group lead by ex-military Owen Shaw (Luke Evans) who had bigger plans except he had already taken down a whole military convoy.  With the exchange of giving Dom and his team pardon for everything they had done, he employed them to gather together and help him with this assignment. The team was the same as last time save for the two Mexican drivers with Han (Sung Kang) and Gisele (Gal Gadot), Roman (Tyrese Gibson) and Tej (Ludacris). As the assignment gets further, the situation gets bad to worse when Owen Shaw is a lot more than they had ever encountered before.

I’m trying to keep this as spoiler free as possible.  That plot could be full of excitement! I’m going straight out to say that I LOVE THIS ONE! If you have read my Fast Five review (or if you haven’t, its right HERE), these movies are loud, explosive, intense and fun.  Its something you walk into and just watch action over and over again. The story is usually really basic and there’s always one objective to everything.  This time, we get a bit more.  The story is still straight forward but we bring in some more slowed down moments to incorporate the story of Letty and what happened.  She is an important part of this group and is part of the family so it was worth the time to put that part in and I appreciated them for doing that.

The last few Fast and Furious and made us acknowledge that Justin Lin has got this franchise so well in his mind. Its his baby that he picked up from a low point and brought it to its full potential. In this one, he doesn’t hold off one little bit.  He throws us everything in the playbook.  We get back our street racing and then the team has a surprise fight with tanks.  We get weirdly modified supercars with some crazy technology that makes them change the way their cars are made.  We get the crazy ending scene with a plane. Lots of gunfight or just close hand combat.  Its packed with a lot of awesomeness!

They keep their funny dialogue from mostly Tyrese Gibson and Ludacris that usually makes everyone laugh a bit in between all the loud explosions and action-packed moments.  The team is the same as before so if you’ve been following the franchise, it feels like home because we know them from the past few flicks already. However, I’m not exactly sure if there are people that would see this if they haven’t seen the previous one at the bare minimum.  This one links a lot of the past ones together and I felt all nostalgic in the opening credits sequence.

I never talk much about the bad guys in this one because the focus is the team themselves.  This time, we have Luke Evans playing the cunning and smart Owen Shaw.  His team is one that is tough and a match to Dom’s.  Shaw is somewhat cold-blooded because he doesn’t really care much about the sacrifices of his team but at the same time, he is extremely confident in his plans as they are almost always impenetrable.  This one is a tough cookie and his team really does kick some serious ass.

Fast & Furious 6 is on par with Fast Five for me.  I took a night to think about it before writing this up.  This one is loud and explosive.  The ending hour at the minimum was intense like crazy.  This movie is a 2.5 hours movie and it does not feel like that at all. It feels absolutely awesome to get into such an anticipated movie and get exactly what I wanted and maybe even more.  I loved every minute of it and its a definite Blu-ray purchase when it comes out 🙂 Plus, stay just a little bit to see the actual ending that’ll lead us into the pre-producing Part 7, because it blew my mind!

As much as I’m a bit skeptical of James Wan being the new director to do Fast 7, and I’m wondering what else could he possibly do to make it any more than this one was? With what I saw at the end, I’m still really excited!!!

Fast Five (2011)

I’m a huge fan for (most of) the Fast and the Furious movies! This comes when you date a guy who is crazy about anything related to cars.  Fast & Furious is just all about adrenaline and cars and whatnot.  Its nothing to be raving about sophistication but its usually a fun ride, although there are a few exceptions in the franchise that I’m not exactly a big fan of but whenever I hear of a new one coming out, it always gets me all excited! With Fast Six just around the corner, my boyfriend gave me a choice to rewatch Iron Man 1 &2 or this…and I guess I was more into this at the moment 😉

Director: Justin Lin

Cast: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Sung Kang, Ludacris, Gal Gadot, Tego Calderon, Don Omar

After rescuing Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) while on his way to jail, Brian O’Connor (Paul Walker) and his girlfriend/Toretto’s sister Mia (Jordana Brewster) are set to meet at their friend Vince’s place in Rio de Janeiro.  While there they get in on a job with Vince’s connection to steal some cars from a train. When they realize that that it isn’t a simple job, Mia drives off into hiding and meets up with Brian and Dominic to end up realizing that it has to do with a rich and powerful criminal in Rio de Janerio called Reyes. While they are being hunted down by Reyes and his men, the FBI’s special team also sends out Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) who teams up with a rookie Rio policewoman to capture Dominic and O’Connor. As things get to the point of no return, Dominic and Brian whip up a plan to gather their best and trustworthy friends to build a team that can perform the most epic heist to steal all of Reyes’ money in one shot in order to get their freedom.

There really is no end to Justin Lin’s increasing awesomeness in these fancy car stunts, heist, action.  Justin Lin took over this franchise with the 3rd one doing Tokyo Drift which to me was the worst in the Fast series.  This one easily is very much the best.  I love Fast & Furious to bits and I got to see that one in theatres.  Unfortunately for this one, due to work and whatnot, my boyfriend ended up seeing it with his friend instead so I only got to see it at home. Fast Five is enjoyable and thrilling to watch.  Its action-packed and keeps our adrenaline rushing during the whole duration!

What I truly enjoy about this movie is how the relationship of the audience and Dominic and Brian and the core team has made us familiar with those characters and their personalities.  It makes for a level of continuity and that we follow through the dangers that they encounter.  It gives us the adrenaline rush and intensity that makes everything work and fall into place.  The story never has to be complicated and it never has to more than the sole desire for everyone to stick together and have each other’s back and just to get their own form of freedom.   Aside from the familiarity of the team, they have impeccable chemistry.  Sung Kang’s Han always makes me laugh with his normalcy but coolness.  We have the Mexican guys who are the drivers and always playing the clowns of the operations.  Tyrese Gibson’s Roman and Ludacris’s Tej Parker makes us laugh with their talk and interaction.  Of course, other than Mia, we always need to have a hot available but tough chick and we bring in Gal Gadot’s motorcycle riding weapon expert Gisele Harabo.

No franchise could succeed with just the same cast doing similar brainless entertainment, so this time, we throw in The Rock’s Hobbs as a dangerous federal agent who has one thing in his job description is to not ask questions and catch the guy on the wanted list.  In this case, its Dominic Toretto.  Of course, he gets caught in more and this brings him to think and decide on what he needs to do next.  The challenges between these two characters adds a lot more than expected.  Its two big guys in the industry and they just have so much power and toughness and machoism.  Look at that scene up there, its possibly one of my fave scenes of them.  Now imagine when they actually fight…LOVE IT!

Fast Five is adrenaline pumping, (almost non-stop) action-packed fun! Something to just shut your mind off and enjoy to the max.  If that doesn’t work for you, we have two crazy big guys that match up to each other with Vin Diesel  and The Rock.  Now if even that doesn’t even do it for you, there’s a lot of funny dialogue that goes on.  It’ll get you to have some pretty good laughs. Just remember, you’re not here to look at impeccable acting or sophisticated plot.  If you had fun with this, thats what counts 🙂 You like cars, heists, chases, crashes, loud and out of the world stunts, then I’d say there isn’t much better than this!

Maybe I’m crazy or I’m just SO EXTREMELY PUMPED UP for the next one! Or I’m both…I don’t know! Definitely check this one out 🙂