FAST FIVE (Rated PG-13 for some profanity, ongoing noisy blasts & violence): Remember the early kung-fu flicks with their bodily contact sounds souped up to an impossible volume - thud, thud, smash, crunch, whap, zap - well, we get the same right here in this flick, with everything - sounds & sights - souped the max.
It's machismo testosterone, folks, and plenty of it. The guys don't talk, they yell or scream. They don't just hold a cell phone or flashlight, they brandish it. When a single shot would do the job, they pump bullets by the dozens. They don't just sweat, they drip. Accumulated tons of hard muscles are on display, generally behind skin tight tee-shirts - women, too.
Nothing just blows up, it has to out-do the hydrogen bomb. It sears in billowing flames, envelopes with balls of fire, enough smoke & flames to singe for miles, shoots fireworks in every direction, rips sky-high & out of sight - all with appropriate noise, of course. The din competes with Brian Tyler's thumping, virile score.
Oh, yes, I almost forgot - the plot.
It's machismo testosterone, folks, and plenty of it. The guys don't talk, they yell or scream. They don't just hold a cell phone or flashlight, they brandish it. When a single shot would do the job, they pump bullets by the dozens. They don't just sweat, they drip. Accumulated tons of hard muscles are on display, generally behind skin tight tee-shirts - women, too.
Nothing just blows up, it has to out-do the hydrogen bomb. It sears in billowing flames, envelopes with balls of fire, enough smoke & flames to singe for miles, shoots fireworks in every direction, rips sky-high & out of sight - all with appropriate noise, of course. The din competes with Brian Tyler's thumping, virile score.
Oh, yes, I almost forgot - the plot.
Chris Morgan has devised the perfect script, crammed with characters originally created by Gary Scott Thompson, that brings together the Family, ready for a Big Heist (from a very bad guy; these "family members" don't rob from the poor). On the fringe is tough-tough guy, hard-nosed fed, Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), a twin hunk to the Father image of the pack, he being Dom (Vin Diesel) - looking tough-tough hard-nosed, too, but beginning to show a bit of age in flab around his face & neck. The rest include former cop Brian (Paul Walker) who's in love with Dom's side-kick sister Mia (Jordana Brewster) and, less important, other members of the team played by Tyrese Gibson, Chris Bridges & Matt Schulze, with Sung Kang, Gal Gadot, Tego Calderon & Don Omar tossed in for good measure.
On hand, mostly just getting on & off a motorcycle in a skin-tight uniform are former Miss Israel, Gal Gadot, and Spanish actress Elsa Pataky as a Brazilian cop who makes a pretty backdrop and looks pritty good in a skimpy bikini.
Let's cut to the quick. After Dom's prison break, the Family gets together in Rio (very popular place in films of late, but this time gloriously filmed from the dregs of favelas to posh city center to shots from above sugar loaf down at the bay - all thanks to DP Stephen F. Windon), where they plan one final job, breaking into the city bank where kazillion millions are stashed, courtesy of one nasty, greedy Big Boss Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida). The Robin Hood act proceeds, a la "Oceans 11," the Family, now complete, heads for the most amazing semi-finale of all - so ridiculously, insanely over the top it can't be described in words, except to say that they don't rob the bank, they rob - and cart away - the entire massive vault.
Do they get away with it? There's a totally unnecessary 10-minute denouement that says it all.
Don't expect anything even approaching logic here; people live or die according to the script, and whatever the outcome, it pales after the accelerating explosive action that precedes it. A lot of money has been sunk into this spare-nothing-to-make-it-spectacular flick, and it shows in every shot. But at 130-minutes, a bit much. (Grade: B-) .