Fast Five | Teen Ink

Fast Five

October 6, 2019
By MovieReviewer_18 ELITE, Short Hills, New Jersey
MovieReviewer_18 ELITE, Short Hills, New Jersey
678 articles 0 photos 8 comments

 Fast Five is the fifth movie in the Fast and Furious franchise and continues the adventures of Brian O'Connor and Dominic Toretto. The movie takes place directly after the events of the fourth movie in the series and starts off with Brian and Mia freeing Dom from a bus that is going to prison. This leads to the group fleeing to south of the border and going to Brazil. However, Mia Toretto, Dom, and Brian all agree that they are tired of running. In order to finally gain their freedom, they decide that they need to do one final job in order to be free. Their plan consists of going against a dangerous businessman that happens to be the most powerful man in all of Rio de Janeiro. Even though their plan won't be easy to carry out, they won't be alone. The trio decides to gather up their very own team to execute an insanely complicated plan, and this includes gathering members from all of their previous crazy adventures. The united group attempts to do their best to buy their own freedom and gain one hundred million dollars in the process, but they don't really know what their up against, and to make matters worse, a talented federal agent, Hobbs, is on their trail, tracking them and looking to arrest them, with no intent of slowing down. 

 Fast Five manages to combine so many of the other great qualities of previous movies in the franchise to create what might be the best movie in the series yet. The beginning of the movie brilliantly jump-starts the movie and transitions smoothly from the fourth movie into this one. The middle of the movie does a marvelous job of progressing things along and presents new, challenging obstacles to the main characters, as well as develop an incredible amount of drama. The enticing ending of the movie proves to be exhilarating and absolutely one of the main highlights of the entire movie. It is able to conclude the entire movie in an astonishing manner that closes up all loose knots and is able to put a smile on viewers' faces. The entire movie is clever, more so than the others, and is really thought through and more complex, because the entire concept just has so many different levels. This movie is able to bring together so many diverse characters together to create a tale that is suspenseful, action-packed and sure to please. In fact, there is really only one flaw with the movie, and that's the length of the movie. The movie is more than two hours long, and although it would make sense that this movie is on the slightly longer side, because there is just so much in this adventure, certain parts feel a little excessive and stretched out. 

 Fast Five is packed to the brim with thrilling twists and turns at seemingly every inch and corner that are just a delight to watch. These are genuinely surprising and manage to keep the movie fresh and entertaining constantly. They aid in helping to add more intensity to the already intense movie to transform the movie into one that will keep the adrenaline pumping and put audiences' on the edges of their seats. Not to be outdone, but another major factor for the movie's greatness is the visuals of the movie. The vividly outstanding visual effects are nothing short of superb and are able to bring all of the car stunts and racing to life even more so. These spectacular special effects are a major factor in making Dom's plan of gaining freedom seem like a reality, and they help to create some of the best scenes in the entire movie. One of the best scenes is one that involves Brian and Dominic driving around a massive vault that they use as a a wrecking ball to demolish their enemies, which causes cars to be tossed aside like rags and smash into one another in an unbelievable fashion.
 Fast Five is able to become more unique than the others in the franchise to date simply because it is able to combine characters from all of the past movies to create a cohesive story that ties everything together. There's characters from every single movie before this one, and they all help to make up the crew that Dom and Brian assemble. Tej Parker, Roman Pearce, Gisele, and Han all return and finally meet one another to help develop even more drama and character development. Watching the characters from other movies interact with one another is shear gold and truly uncanny to watch. All of this helps in making all of the movies in the franchise feel that much more connected to one another, and it also demonstrates how driving and racing has affected everyone. The movie tries to lighten the mood with the interactions between all of the characters, and this results in the tone of the movie becoming fairly light throughout. There are actually quite a bit of witty jokes dispersed throughout the dialogue, and this helps to provide plenty of entertainment. Not only is there more humor than usual, but there's also some more fantastic one-liners that really help to define certain characters. Secondly, because the movie isn't afraid of depicting the true extent of the relationships on-screen, there are some superb scenes showcased. One of these scenes is a fist fight between Dominic Toretto and Hobbs, who are played by Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson, two of the strongest guys in Hollywood, meaning that the fight is one not to miss. Without spoiling what happens, the brawl successfully illustrates the great amount of strength that they both have in a truly bewildering manner. 

 Fast Five is able to accomplish so much mostly because of an extraordinary cast that shines. Dominic Toretto and Brian O'Connor are still the faces of the franchise, and that's a direct result of Vin Diesel and Paul Walker being able to transform into their characters so wonderfully. Vin Diesel is still able to bring his level of intensity to the movie and helps to make the movie substantially more interesting. Brian O'Connor still brings his natural charisma and swag to the movie, which helps to create the compelling character of Paul Walker that the world has come to adore. Dwayne Johnson also does an awesome job of portraying Hobbs, and his character greatly contrasts with Vin Diesel's Dom to really showcase the crude personalities of both characters. Gal Gadot does a magnificent job of playing Gisele Yashar, and her talent is needed for the complex character that isn't afraid of getting the job done. Sung Kang returns once again to play the calm, relaxed Han and is really able to turn into a fan-favorite character. This star-studded cast is extremely noteworthy and a major reason for why the film is able to create so much suspense and become arguably the best movie in the franchise to date. 

 Fast Five is beloved by many viewers, and critics also surprisingly found a great deal of satisfaction with the movie. Rotten Tomatoes gave the movie a solid 77%, which is actually pretty impressive, and IMDb gave the movie a decent 7.3/10, which is actually better than it seems. A whopping 94% of Google users liked the movie, solidifying the idea that the movie truly is worth watching. 

 Fast Five manages to combine together a majestic cast, stunning visuals, and a fascinating plot to create a masterpiece that will certainly surpass any and all previous expectations. It's fast and furious.


The author's comments:

"You know I like my dessert first." - Hobbs


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