Curiouser and Furiouser - A Fast and Furious Watch: Part 8 - Fate of the Furious

Wow!  I can't believe just 7 months ago I had never seen a single Fast and Furious movie and now I got the chance to see one on the big screen for the very first time!  This is a really important milestone.  If you haven't read my other recaps, you can find them here.  This whole thing is full of spoilers.  You have been warned.  On to the recap of Fate of the Furious, a film so bonkers it almost boggles the mind.

Our story begins in Cuba where Letty and Dom have presumably been living for some time.  There is an old fashioned butt jiggling car party, hearkening back to the early years of the series in a charmingly nostalgic way.  As it is Cuba, most of the cars were classics from the 50s, which was novel and  very cool to see.  A young kid, whose name I did not catch but who is identified as Dom's cousin, has run into some trouble with the local butt jiggling car party organizer/ street racer/ maybe gang dude?  Dom has a cousin apparently.  Neat.  Dom's cousin has a shit car and can't race for crap so Dom agrees to race so that he can keep his shit car.  Unfortunately the street racing kingpin dude says Dom has to drive the shit car in the race instead of his nice car.  Uh oh!  Time for Dom to

Newest addition to the crew

magically MacGyver the engine with a Coke can in such a way that it makes it go fast.  Unfortunately this jerry rigging also causes the car to catch on fire in the middle of the race, which Dom manages to win anyway by driving his car in reverse.  He drives a literal flaming car and gets out totally fine without a scratch.  Apparently Dom is Ghost Rider now.  New pitch:  Ghost Rider teams up with the Fast and Furious crew to track down bad guys.  That would be really awesome.  Robbie Reyes Ghost Rider obviously.  You know what I'm just going to say that Robbie Reyes is part of the Fast and Furious team now.  Anywho, Dom wins, but because he has all the money he could possibly want he doesn't take the guy's car from him, settling instead for his respect.  Then he gives his cousin the keys to his nice car since he drove his flaming one off the side of a boardwalk.  Dom is rolling in like Daddy Warbucks handing out cars to everybody.  New pitch: Vin Diesel as Daddy Warbucks.

What is your deal, lady?

Moving on.  Dom and Letty celebrate back and their place, showing more romantic chemistry than they have in some of the other films.  Letty finally knows who she is which is a bonus.  The next day Dom runs into Charlize Theron sporting some really terrible white girl dreads like Rachel Dolezal or some shit.  He stops to help her fix her car but yikes she's really a bad guy who shows him something on a phone and tells him that he needs to betray his whole crew.  WHAT'S IN THE BOX!? I mean the phone.  Charlize's character, whom we later learn is called Cipher, is out here looking like those dudes from the Matrix Reloaded acting all shifty.  I really don't get her whole deal.

We then catch up with Hobbs who is a coach for his daughter's soccer team doing the full dad

I guess this is prob cultural appropriation but it was cute af

thing.  Then he leads the girls in a Haka/ Siva Tau dance to psych out the opposing team.  It is freaking adorable.  Oh and Hobbs has like a fan club of all the moms on the benches because all these suburban white ladies are thirsty as fuck for The Rock.  I mean, who wouldn't be?  Some agent dude shows up and Hobbs is pissed because he's doing the dad thing right now, focusing on listening to Tay Tay in the car with little girls not shooting bad guys.  The Rock is really using a lot of his comedy chops here, which he hasn't really been able to flex in this series.  In fact, I would say pretty definitively that Fate of the Furious has the most intentionally comedic moments of any of the previous films.  A lot of that humor comes from Hobbs, whose first name is Luke I guess, not sure if we ever knew that before.  Given that he doesn't even crack a smile in his first appearance in Fast 5 this is a nice change.  Anyway the agent guy convinces him that he needs to get back to work so he calls in his crew.  Like basically the FF crew are like the Avengers hanging out doing their thing until they get called to fly to Germany or wherever.

Everybody meets up and chases down some dude who stole an EMP and Tej rigs up some cute looking wrecking balls and everything goes great.  Then all of a sudden as they are heading home, Dom turns on the team, steals the EMP, and runs.  Letty is heartbroken, everybody is like WTF.  It pretty much sucks.  Also I guess what they were doing was illegal?  Oh right like because they aren't official agents?  I dunno I really don't understand the organizational structure of how they get their jobs.  At any rate Hobbs is arrested and Mr. Nobody shows up with his douche canoe assistant Little

Nobody who offer Hobbs a deal to work for them and get out of jail but he decides to go to jail anyway.  There he sees Deckard Shaw whose cell is conveniently directly across from his.  Much of the humor from this film comes from the fantastic chemistry between Jason Statham and Dwayne

Now kiss

Johnson, whom online people have shipped and I am pretty on board.  They antagonize each other in hilarious ways.  Hobbs straight up starts curling his bench like a weight, having ripped it directly from the wall.  It is some silly dude queer bait posturing, but I enjoy it.  All of a sudden, the doors to the cells open and there is craziness.  Hobbs and Shaw are both throwing a lot of people down, but really they just want to get to each other.  Great running and action in this sequence.  Everybody has their skills in these movies and Statham's is parkour/ running. He is lithe and swift and he climbs fences, leaps over other prisoners and knocks them down.  Anyway they think they have escaped but they are surrounded by Nobody and his men, who orchestrated the whole thing.

Mr. Nobody brings Hobbs and Shaw to the super secret base of whatever organization Nobody happens to work for, and the rest of the crew is already there.  Everybody is pissed that Shaw is there,

I will never forget you, my sweet angel

but then it is revealed that Shaw was recruited by Cipher and I guess isn't such a horrible dude.  Which I would totally buy if HE DIDN'T FUCKING KILL HAN.  This is the part of the movie that is most infuriating to me.  I have read online that the director may have implied that Han is not actually dead or may come back or something like that.  That would be awesome.  But Han's name is not mentioned at all in this entire scene, in the entire movie, as the FF crew interact with the man who killed him/ whom they presume killed him.  If they want to say that Shaw didn't actually kill Han, fine, then this is the scene to do it in.  But the entire rest of the movie is based on the notion that Shaw is just some criminal they reluctantly partner with and not somebody who straight up murdered one of their crew.  I mean the entire last film was a revenge movie against this guy.  His banter with Hobbs is funny (Shaw says Hobbs t-shirt must be cutting off circulation in his brain, Hobbs calls him a tea and crumpets eating criminal son of a bitch) and he plays a vital role, but it really struck me that by not talking about Han at all, the film has a massive plot hole that I couldn't get past.

Anyway, for the sake of the film they need Shaw's help because he has some experience with this Cipher lady who has recruited Dom for reasons unknown.  Roman suggests they use Gods Eye, that nifty Person of Interest machine that can locate anybody anywhere that they were tracking down last film.   Unfortunately, it starts to ping all over the place because Cipher is this crazy hacker lady.  Oh and Ramsey  has heard of her but she thought it was like a whole organization of people because they do such awesome awesome hacking. So yeah basically they are saying that it was this Cipher chick who set everything in motion the last couple of movies and she has really been the big bad all along.  

 Whatever.  It's always one big bad controlling everything.  Charlize Theron is Thanos I guess.  Actually, ok so if Charlize Thanos is trying to get the In-Furious Gauntlet who would be each gem?  Tej/ Ramsey def Mind gem, Hobbs the Power gem, Han the Time Gem (because I'm still convinced he is a time traveller), Dom the Soul gem, Letty the Reality Gem, and Roman the Space Gem I guess because there is no gem of eating crisps and wise assing.

Where was I?  Oh right.  So they are looking for Dom but the thing doesn't work so then Ramsey tries another magical hacking doodle and they figure out that the CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE! Cipher and Dom roll in and and shoot up the place and steal Gods Eye.  Everybody is super sad and disappointed in Dom but nobody dies in the attack.  In the aftermath, Letty suggests maybe they call Brian and Mia for help, but apparently his time in this life is done.  I like that they kept Brian the character alive for the sake of the film, living his life in peace away from all this craziness.  Paul will be with us in spirit forever. So Dom and Cipher return to their hidden airplane of doom and we finally figure out why Dom is working for her:  she has kidnapped Elena!  Not only that, Elena apparently had a baby with Dom in that time before Letty came back that he didn't know about and she's got the baby too!  OMG Dom is a dad!!! BABY!!! What?! Alright so now this makes a lot more sense. His child is on the line that's why he is doing what Cipher wants.  When it comes to family, family takes precedence over "family."

The team tries to figure out their next plan of action, which apparently involves Mr. Nobody taking them to a secret garage that is hidden behind a fish processing plant.  The garage has a ton of dope rides, including tanks, because its all the stuff seized from drug dealers over the years.  Cool.  Roman basically cums just walking into the place.  Tej really wants a tank. Back in the legion of doom, Cipher sends Dom on a run to do something but he fakes his car being broken down and sneaks away to talk to Helen Mirren!!  Helen Mirren plays a total badass like street thug gang leader. I love her. She was amazing.  We cut back to the FF crew who are sniping at each other, particularly Hobbs and Shaw who really just need to get a room already.  Actually, can we talk about this because the first few films had SO much queerbaiting that I came to really expect them in the films.  Then as the series took a more action focused turn a lot of those bromance moments went away.  I'm actually kind of glad they found their rhythm again with Hobbs and Shaw.

what is even happening?

Ok back the to movie. Dom returns to Cipher.  I guess there is a plan to get some nuclear launch codes from a Russian diplomat guy so she sends Dom in to retrieve them.  He's expecting to have another crew of drivers to help, but it turns out that Cipher can hack literally every car in the entire city and she sends all these zombie cars to block traffic and do her bidding.  It really is like a zombie movie.  As these movies get more and more sci fi bonkers you can do shit like this.  Remember when it was just about street racing and maybe busting some cocaine dealers?  Simpler times.  Now we have hacked cars raining down from the sky out of a parking garage and driving over curbs and shit.  Dom backs the Russian car into a corner and then gets out looking like fucking Bane with a metal cutter and shit.  What the hell, Dom?  He intimidates the Russian guy into handing over the nuclear codes and then gets in his car.  But the FF crew is here to save the day, including the douche Little Nobody, aka Sir Nobody-Wants-You-In-This-Movie-Please-Go-Away. They get to Dom and all shoot grappling hooks into his car.  But of course, because it is Dom, aka the greatest driver known to man, he manages to evade capture, tear the grappling hooks off, and then takes off on foot.

Shaw chases after Dom, and Dom shoots him.  DAMN!  Letty chases after him too, but he can't bring himself to shoot her also.  Tormund from Game of Thrones, who is like one of Cipher's flunkies DOES pull a gun on Letty, but Dom convinces him to let her go and the two take off with the nuclear codes.  Letty is absolutely heartbroken, though happy that Dom didn't have it in him to actually shoot her.  She believes in him, but she doesn't know what to do.  Dom could have attempted to communicate SOMEWHAT with her, but alas.  Meanwhile, everybody's pretty angry that Dom just murdered Shaw, except for me who remembers Han more than his friends.  My dear Han, by Grapthar's Hammer you shall be avenged.

Fun thoughts

Anyway, Cipher is pissed that Dom couldn't kill Letty so she straight up murders Elena in front of him/ in front of the baby.  I freaking hate fridging, especially when the character serves literally no other purpose than to be a plot device.  Elena deserved better.  Anyway, Cipher then reveals her master plot which is to get nukes so she can hold governments accountable and shit.  Like, I dunno, maybe she's got a point?  We live in odd times where even a mention of nukes in this movie brings to mind the actual world we live in.  Actually, this whole back half of the film with unsecured nukes in this Russian base that had been taken over by separatists was deeply disquieting for me in an era where people are talking about nuking things again.  I guess this is what it was like during the Cold War with all those movies, but I saw those Cold War movies after the Cold War was over so like it wasn't really imminent for me and just a plot device.  Throughout the rest of this movie I couldn't help thinking, "Wait.. ARE the nukes secure?  Could separatists get a hold of them this easily?  Oh shit what the fuck."  This was actually pretty distracting for me, to be honest.  I had a hard time getting out of that weird head space.  Stupid anxiety.  Stupid fucking nukes.

What Roman SHOULD look like after that dip

Moving on.  The crew figures out where the bad guys are heading and try to get there first in all those shiny cars they were looking at before.  Tej gets his tank and he is so happy.  Roman took a Lambo which makes PERFECT sense since they are driving on snow.  Oh Roman, you goof.  So Dom rolls in using that EMP that he stole, which disables all the Russian cars, but somehow doesn't disable his own?  Um.. I'm pretty sure that's now how EMPs work.  Like you can't also be driving a car and use one, bro.  Whatever.  Cipher car jacks a nuclear submarine.  Ramsey and Tej do their techy thing, but then Roman and the douche Little Nobody get trapped in the only room that can disable the nuclear codes and Roman, hilariously, doesn't know how to read Russian.  Tej tries to walk him through it, but Roman is struggling until he saves the day and disables the nukes and saves the world.  Fucking Roman saves the world.  It is as this point I realize that I trust our nuclear codes to Tyrese more than the actual president of the United States.  Odd thoughts to be having during an FF movie.  Now everybody needs to escape, so they all get in their cars and drive away, but wait... Roman drove a freaking Lambo in the middle of the snow and it has no traction and he can't drive away from the Russians who are chasing them.  God Dammit, Roman, you just saved Earth get it together. His car goes into the water but  Tej reaches him with a hook and gets him out, but how Roman is not just dead of exposure is one of the enduring mysteries of this film.

Damn this baby is cute

No longer a mystery are Dom's plans since we finally get to the big reveal that Helen Mirren is Owen and Deckard Shaw's mom.  The whole think with killing Deckard was a ruse and with the help of the Cuban street racing guy, those two dudes from Fast 5 who lost all their money, and Mrs. Shaw, Deckard was spirited away, got his bro out of prison, and now the two Shaw Bros together at last can fuck Cipher's shit up.  Deckard, Han killing fucking Deckard Shaw, saves the day and rescues Dom's baby from the plane.  This does NOT make up for killing Han, but this Pacifier sequel is pretty hilarious.  Deckard punching out dudes, baby just smiling and bouncing along with ear phones in. Dammit, Jason Statham stop being so likable.  This whole scene was just supremely silly and I really enjoyed it.  There have been talks about giving Hobbs and Shaw their own spinoff movie, and I really would not mind it at all if they decided to make it one of those "uh oh Hobbs' daughter snuck in the back seat and now they have to kill people with a little kid tagging along" movies with Deckard as Hobbs' manny.  Jason Statham was really great in Spy and I like seeing him doing more silly stuff. Its a bummer about the whole killing Han and me never being able to forgive him thing.   God this baby is cute.  They got the cutest fucking baby to play Dom's baby.

Anyway, with the Shaw bros doing their thing, Dom is free to kill Tormund and help his buddies.

I can't even explain this.  I won't even try.

Hurray!!  But uh oh, the sub is surfacing and torpedoes are away!  This is the part of the movie that you probably saw in the trailer and thought, "what the fuck is going on why is there a nuclear submarine chasing after street racing cars and a tank and when did these movies become just Brosnan era Bond knock offs."  ICE!  TORPEDOES!  BOMBS!  SHOOTING!  ALL THE THINGS!!  Anyway, everybody is happy that Dom is back and with them but how are we going to get out of this pickle.  Letty and Ramsey share a car and have a conversation about Cipher which I think was the first time this movie passed the Bechdel Test, though don't hold me to that.  A heat seeking missile is heading toward Dom, but he drives around so it hits the sub instead and explodes.  But oh no!  He's out of his car and is going to get burned alive!  Thankfully the crew surrounds him with their cars, protecting him from the flames, which is totally a real thing that cars can do.

Team Cipher blasting of agaaaaaaain 

So Cipher jumps out of the plane with a parachute and manages to escape and surely they will have to track her down in the next film.  Her getting away like that was a very GI Joe/ generic 1980s cartoon way of ending the story.  I'm ok with that. Owen and Deckard save the baby and get control of the plane and all is well.  At the very end of the film everybody is hanging out on a roof having a happy BBQ when Deckard arrives to present Dom with his kid.  It feels like maybe Deckard should have given him his kid sometime before just then?  Like it seems like some time has passed.  Why was Deckard just watching Dom's baby?  Is Deckard just his manny now?  Very confusing.  Anyway, Dom toasts his crew and announces his baby's name: Brian.  Everybody in the movie theater bursts into tears.  Brian will be with us always.  Everybody is happy and having a grand old time and nobody says anything about Deckard, the man who murdered Han, being there too.  Grand old times.

Fin


Stray Thoughts:

- Man I really enjoyed Deckard Shaw in this movie and his dumb banter with Hobbs.  Why couldn't they have just said that he didn't really kill Han, or he was brainwashed, or Han was really alive?  I just don't know how they can expect the audience to keep on board with this

- Movie pitch: Furious Babies.  Like either the babies of all the crew OR the whole crew but just as babies street racing strollers and stuff.

- Not all hackers need white people dreads.  Just.. stop

- The way the film ended things with Ramsey, Tej and Roman implied that maybe Ramsey might not be into dudes at all, which I would 100% be on board for.  It would be great if they took that whole fighting over her element out of the film all together and just made her an equal partner.  She is smarter than half the damn team, she doesn't need to be viewed entirely on her relationship with a dude.

- A lot of people didn't like this movie, but I actually enjoyed it IMMENSELY because of how batshit and goofy it was.  It really didn't take itself seriously which was the biggest problem I had with some of the others in the series.  I love batshit goofy movies, dammit.

- Movie pitch: Fast-tastic Voyage.  The FF crew is shrunken down and injected into Dom's blood stream after he develops a rare form of cancer that can only be cured by street racing through his circulatory system

- Movie pitch: Fast and Furiosa.  Cipher sets off a nuclear bomb causing destruction of most of the planet.  Only the FF crew survive and, along with Cipher's twin sister Furiosa, they race through the desolate, scorched landscape searching for peace and security.

- Movie pitch: Fast and Furious but in space.  Its like a pod racing movie or something.

Well that's it for a while.  Thank you for joining me on this furious journey.

And remember: Live your life a quarter mile at a time.

Curiouser and Furiouser - A Fast and Furious Watch: Part 7 - Furious 7

So here we are at the most recent Fast and Furious movie, a film that feels like a swan song, that feels like the finale in a series more than a decade long, but oddly is not.  I think my biggest takeaway from this movie is that there is absolutely no reason for there to be any more Fast and Furious movies after this one.  The death of Paul Walker alone should render a continuation completely unnecessary, but this film really satisfactorily resolves all the lingering threads from the previous movies and any continuation feels like a cash grab to me.  I have read that the new movie which is coming out next year features both Charlize Theron and Helen Mirren and my appreciation for both actresses aside, I find the film entirely unnecessary at best.

On to the recap. I thought this movie was actually considerably better paced and overall more engaging than the 6th.  Sad as it is, I feel that the elimination of both Han and Gisele tightened the narrative and kept the action sequences more cohesive.  So too did the sidelining of Hobbs for much of the film, which enabled the plot to focus on the core group: Dom, Brian, Tej, Letty, and Roman.  While the introduction of the hacker Ramsey and Kurt Russell's Mr Nobody did add a bit of novelty to the mix, by tightening the focus on 5 characters during most action sequences vs the 8 of the previous film, I had a much clearer idea of what was going on and where everyone was.  In truth, Roman's shtick is completely played out and in my opinion if they wanted to only have 5 main characters in the crew they should have kept Han and gotten rid of Roman. Roman doesn't even eat any chips the entire movie.  He is just obnoxious.  Heck, they could just get rid of Roman entirely and have Ramsey be the 5th member of the team.

So the film starts out with the revelation that Jason Statham is playing Shaw's brother, Deckard.

Whatever.  So Owen Shaw actually didn't die in the 6th movie, he was just grievously injured, but his brother is sufficiently pissed off that he goes on a one man revenge mission to take down the FF crew.  So there is some plotty stuff with hackers and terrorists and whatnot, but essentially the plot of this film is Jason Statham wants to kill everybody and Dom wants to kill the fuck out of him because he murdered Han.  Dom is a character that is motivated primarily by his love of family and his protectiveness of his crew.  The entire plot of Fast & Furious if you recall was Dom trying to find Letty's murderer and fuck him up.  Now he does it again for Han.  Dom has become like a poor man's street racing Liam Neeson.

Dom begins the film by taking Letty to the same Race Wars out in the desert that they visited in the very first movie.  Basically he is trying to jog her memories with things that are familiar.  Revisiting this location was a great idea just in general as it grounds us in the reality that while Dom and his crew have moved beyond just street racing to basically being an on-call Dirty Dozen, regular run of the mill street racing crews are still having their butt jiggling dance parties where the biggest problems they face are losing their pinks and getting picked up by the cops.  Letty experiences a bit of a breakdown after racing, though, and punches out Hector, that racer dude from the first movie.  Her attempts at recalling her former life have been a mixed bag.  Later, Letty visits her own grave and tells Dom that he should just leave it, since "Letty" died that day and she is someone new.  Dom tries to console her, but she needs to figure things out on her own.  Michelle Rodriguez is not the best actress actress in the world, but I actually bought her struggle in this movie as a woman who wants the life she missed, but doesn't remember it.

Meanwhile Brian has gone full on domestic, driving around in a mini van and dropping his son off at preschool.  The sequences of his happy life with Mia, who incidentally is pregnant once again, were really melancholic for me.  Brian the character is antsy, missing his old life while simultaneously trying to be a good father to his son; Paul Walker the actor tragically died in a high speed car crash leaving behind a young daughter. Walker's penchant for fast cars, honed over the course of filming the FF series literally resulted in his demise while on break from filming this very movie.  It is a bitter pill to swallow as I watched the film, that the dramatic action sequences, high speeds, and drifts contributed to the death of a young actor who was almost universally liked by his cast and crew mates.

Anyway, back to the plot.  Shaw breaks into Hobbs' office and is doing some hacking shit to try to find the FF crew when Hobbs confronts him.  This leads to a massive gunfight that results in the tragic loss of a lot of expensive office furniture. Hobbs takes a flying leap out the window to try to stop Shaw and ends up breaking his collarbone, though how he didn't just straight up die is kind of preposterous.  This whole thing was like the chicken fight from Family Guy or something.  Anyway, apparently Shaw got enough info because he sent a bomb to Brian and Mia's house which they luckily were not in at the time.  Dom visits Hobbs in the hospital and discovers A) he has a daughter who is super cute and B) Deckard Shaw is like some super evil former Special Forces guy and has been doing shady shit for a long time.  Hobbs gives Dom a mission to basically just kill that dude, but like ya know off the books because the government can't actually hire assassins.  Brian sends Mia and Jack off to the Dominican Republic to be safe and then Dom heads off to Japan to I guess collect Han's body or whatever and chat with that Sean dude from Tokyo Drift who is just still super super boring.

Why

Tej and Roman meet up with Dom and Brian at Han's funeral, which does not feature everyone ceremonially placing a chip on his casket which is what I would have done.  Anyway Shaw shows up at the funeral and he and Dom race each other until they get to this underground area where they basically just ram their cars into each other for some reason.  Like really is this the best way to end this fight?  I am so confused.  Shaw pulls a gun on Dom and I am worried that he is going to be in real trouble when a bunch of random armed guys show up and save the day, lead by Kurt Russell.

Kurt Russell's arrival helps transition the plot of the film from straight up revenge street racing to like a really weird episode of Person of Interest.  Apparently a terrorist caught a hacker who has basically made the machine from Person of Interest that can see in every camera and whatnot.  If Dom and his crew can recover the data and save the hacker, then Kurt Russell will allow him to use the machine to track down Shaw.  What?!  K.  Anyway the team gathers, even Letty who is pissed that nobody told her that everyone was ok since she saw that Brian's house burned down and shit.  Roman is not feeling really confident about the plan and I totally don't blame him.  He tries to suggest his own plan, which everybody scoffs at but inevitably allows.  Of course Roman's plan is completely fucking insane.

Roman's plan, which is completely fucking insane, involves all the cars on an airplane parachuting

WHAT?!

down onto the road near the terrorist's hideout to catch the convoy of bad guys before they get the info from this hacker.  Just.. what?!  What the fuck?!  Just flying fucking cars.  What in the fucking shit was this whole scene?! Roman is scared, because OF COURSE but Tej wired up a remote switch forcing his car out of the airplane, which is completely safe, duh.  All the cars land perfectly on the ground on their wheels, all except Roman who is stuck in some kind of magical tree that can support the weight of a car.  They find the convoy of the bad guys and of course the bad guys start shooting at them with high powered guns and armor piercing rounds, and fucking turrets hidden under a bus.  Why didn't they just shoot at the convoy if they were flying in a fucking plane?  I don't even get it.  Whatever.  Brian surfs on top of a car and rescues this hacker who turns out to be a lady that both Tej and Roman totally crush on.

Meanwhile Brian is having a serious battle with Tony Jaa inside this van, which is completely preposterous.  Tony Jaa would totally kick Paul Walker's ass, this is not even a question.  We know that Brian is a former cop and street racer, but no fucking way does he have martial arts skills on par with Tony Jaa.  The fact that this battle is even close is so silly. The bus nearly goes over the edge and Brian just makes it by jumping on top of Letty's car.  Shaw shows up and starts shooting at everybody too.  Ugh that guy is just everywhere.  How the fuck does Shaw know where everybody is?  Dom meanwhile is driving hacker lady away from the rest of the group, but the terrorists are right behind him.  The lead terrorist, played by Djimon Hounsou, corners Dom right on a cliff leaving him no real options but to drive his fucking car off a cliff.  Insanity.

Everybody looks fine in nice clothes

Anyway after all that, Ramsey the hacker lady reveals that she mailed the secret plans to her friend in Abu Dabi so everybody has to take a road trip to sandy town in shiny new Bugattis.  Damn the budget for cars has gone up in this series.  Apparently Ramsey's friend sold the drive that the secret plans were on to a Jordanian prince because the secret plans with the code to create the machine from Person of Interest was contained on a zip drive with plans for a car too?  Huh?  I don't even understand this part.  Whatever.  Everybody has to get all fancy to go to this party which is pretty much an excuse to see Letty in a dress and everybody all fancy.  Roman in particular is having a really good time and wants to live in this gold palace of busty ladies.  All is not well at rich people party, though, because Ronda Rousey is there with her hijabi protection squad crew to make sure no shenanigans go on.  Spoiler alert: There are shenanigans.

What in the actual fuck?!

Dom and Brian find the car with the drive in it and basically cum all over this super awesome car because of how awesome it is.  They try to get into the system but it is taking them more time than they would have liked. Roman helps provide a distraction by being an annoying dick bag.  Tej and Ramsey are working on the tech stuff, but time runs out and Ronda Rousey and her hijabi protection squad stumble across Letty who has to fight them off.  Then Brian and Dom are required to drive the car out into the middle of the room.  Somehow Shaw is there AGAIN somehow and Brian and Dom realize this car has NO BRAKES and Dom decides to drive  OUT THE FUCKING WINDOW ON THE 500TH FLOOR OF THIS FUCKING HIGH RISE and into an adjacent building into some priceless artifacts.  MY CABBAGES!!  Then they fucking do it again with the third building.  What in the actual flying fuck?  Anyway they get the thing out of the car and roll to safety and somehow make it out of the building without being arrested while the car flies out of the building and onto the ground, thankfully not just murdering tourists on its way down.

They meet up with Mr. Nobody again and Brian gives him the drive but then he gives it right back so they can use it to find Shaw using the Person of Interest machine.  Ok but they actually played Person of Interest music while doing the whole machine thingy.  Also the guy is named Shaw.  I was getting serious PoI vibes.  Whatever.  Anyway they used the deal to track the thing.  Dom tells Mr Nobody that "My guys are racers not killers"  so only he and Brian go because they actually do murder people on occasion.  They go and confront Shaw in a warehouse but Djimon Hounsou is there to help him in an obvious trap.  Kurt Russell has magic night vision goggles to help them in this fight but he gets shot anyway.  The lose the machine to the terrorists which is probably bad.  Somehow Kurt Russell isn't dead because he has a bulletproof vest made of fucking Mithril or something.  They leave him on the side of the road and a chopper picks him up so I guess he'll be ok.

So the team meets up again and realize they better do something different because this running around shit is BS.  Tej suggests they hack the hackers but to do that they have to be in range.  They decide to lure the terrorists back to Los Angeles because they "know the town" but this seems like a really really terrible idea for a lot of reasons including, oh I dunno, innocent bystanders that the FF crew don't give a shit about I guess.  Anywho Dom goes back to his old house which was bombed if you recall, except apparently for the garage where his magical Dodge Charger was stored so of course he gets that and then gets all decked out with guns and shit because he isn't playing around anymore.  Full on revenge mode.  So the crew splits up into groups and drive around trying to get a lock on the signal when all of a sudden the terrorists show up in a helicopter and release a fucking predator drone on them which apparently NOBODY fucking cares about because there are no LAPD choppers or military in the area at all.  Brian decides to dodge the drone going old school, aka going underneath a semi truck.  This is only partially helpful though as the drone just shoots the truck releasing tubes all over the road.  MY CABBAGES!

This fight went on FOREVER

Dom and Shaw have another bro down, the drone is still chasing everybody around, Tej and Ramsey sitting there like "uploading... uploading" for about 15 minutes waiting for the damn virus to go into the system or whatever.  Then Dom and Shaw ram cars again for some reason because that is a thing they do and then decide to have a crow bar/ wrench fight.  Hobbs meanwhile is watching this shit go down on TV and decides to just Hulk out of his own cast.  What the shit?!  FINALLY some cops arrive, but no god damn chopper.  Brian faces down with Tony Jaa again and inexplicably gets the upper hand.  No, Brian.  No.  No you don't know martial arts as well as famed Muay Thai legend Tony Jaa but yet somehow you beat him.  Probably this would have been the most unrealistic thing in this movie if it did not also feature predator drones flying through LA, parachuting cars, and cars driving off of a fucking high rise building.

Anyway Hobbs steals an ambulance from the hospital and drives it right off a bridge and into the drone, destroying it.  Dom and Shaw are STILL fighting.  I don't know how long their wrench/ punching/ crow bar fight lasted but seriously it felt like 20 minutes.  FINALLY the terrorists get a little sick of Shaw and shoot right at Dom even though Shaw is in the way, causing the street to collapse and Shaw to falls to his doom/ not quite death because that would be too easy.  Hobbs comes to Dom's rescue by ripping the gun out of the drone and using it to shoot at that chopper.  Letty is in trouble, but Dom drives his car up a ramp and drops a grenade into the chopper and then lands. But he's in trouble.  He's rolling all over the place.  Brian pulls him out but he isn't breathing. They try CPR but it isn't working.  Then Letty tries to use... the POWER of LOVE!!  She says she remembers everything, including the fact that they apparently got married.  Her love magic works and Dom wakes up.  I really wish I bought their relationship a little more.  The chemistry just isn't there, but whatever, love magic.

Shaw is captured and brought to a super secret CIA detention center that looks like that place they bring bad guys on Arrow or whatever.  Then everybody has a beach party and everyone is super cute

BRB crying my eyes out

and happy.  But this whole thing is making me really sad because Paul Walker is dead.  Everybody is getting all melancholy and Dom has a voice over talking about how things are going to be different now and how Brian has this new life.  I no joke started getting really emotional about Paul Walker. This whole series has really made me like him.  I really understand why people were so upset about his death now.  As if to make the audience feel the sads even more, Brian and Dom have one last race and there is a montage of Brian and Dom together.  This is like a 10 minute In Memorium segment within the movie and I am a crying mess.  The film ends with a Dom voiceover saying "You'll always be with me and you'll always be my brother."  Then Brian's car like goes off into the sky.  Jesus I am sad.

Stray Thoughts

- So this movie had such a melancholy ending I really wish it was the ending of the series.  The audience simultaneously can believe in the fantasy that Brian is off living his life with Mia and his kids and also know that Paul Walker is dead and can never be replaced. In my mind, with the major arcs of the characters completed, there is no need to extend the series, though I do understand why they are being made.

- Having seen 7 of these movies I understand a few really important things about their popularity.  The first and most significant is that the films are dominated by actors of color from a wide range of backgrounds.  This is really important.  A film like Mad Max: Fury Road might be better technically and in a whole host of other ways, but I don't think anybody can underestimate the fact that representation is so important in cinema.  I cannot think of another long running series of films that feature majority PoC actors at all.  If you think about the staying power of, say, James Bond films, which like the FF movies vary greatly in terms of quality, you can see that the FF films, while not "good" by certain metrics are nonetheless important and worthy additions to the genre.

- The second thing I realized was that I was far more emotionally invested in the characters than I thought.  I was happy that Letty regained her memories and she and Dom got back together even though they don't have the greatest chemistry in the world. I was happy that Brian got his happy ending, and yet I was devastated by the ending when it really sunk in that Paul Walker died doing what he loved: driving fast.

- The third thing I've noticed is that as Vin Diesel has matured as an actor, and as the series has shifted to making his story more of the focus, it has really gotten stronger.  In some ways, I wonder if future installments will be even more Dom focused and less about the secondary players, which seems like the direction it is going in.  Roman is completely useless as a character now. Dom and Letty and Tej and Ramsey could probably do just fine by themselves and ditch him entirely.  With Brian gone and Dom not really having as much as an emotional investment in the rest of the crew, I could see some kind of soft reboot again with Dom and Letty finding different people to join them.  If not, if they decide to keep the original crew in tact, then I will really need to see them give more backstory to Tej and make me more emotionally invested in him and give Roman something to do other than just being an asshat.

- I didn't really notice the parts where Paul Walker's brothers replaced him w/ CGI but I don't really have a very good eye to notice those kinds of things

- I will definitely be doing write ups of further entries into the series even though I am not really sold on more movies.  As spectacularly insane as they are, I have really grown quite fond of them.

Curiouser and Furiouser: A Fast and Furious Watch - Part 6: Fast and Furious 6

Did all roads REALLY lead to this though?  Did they?

Hello all, I am back again (sort of) with the 6th part of my Fast and Furious watch.  I actually watched this movie well over a month and a half ago, but did not do my recap for a couple of reasons.  The first is that I have been kind of busy and writing other things and the election was really getting me down.  In fact, it has been so long since I've seen the movie that it isn't even fresh in my mind anymore.  I could probably rewatch it, but my heart just isn't in it anymore.  There is something about the election that has just left me incapable of just doing recaps of stupid car movies.  Sorry guys. Here are just some stray thoughts.

My biggest problem with this movie was the ending.  Spoiler alert: Han Dies.  Now Han died before.  Han "died" in Tokyo Drift. But then Han appeared in the next three films and I thought that perhaps he had faked his death, that Tokyo Drift hadn't really happened in the continuity of the films, or any other excuses to explain this away.

Throughout Fast and Furious, Fast 5, and Fast and Furious 6, Han makes oblique references to wanting to go to Tokyo.  However in my mind this had to be a reference to going BACK to Tokyo rather than going for the first time.  If not, then we are supposed to believe that Tokyo Drift takes place AFTER all these films which makes absolutely no sense.  I mean the cars of Tokyo Drift are clearly older cars, Han himself is obviously younger, the film was made in 2005, released in 2006, and LOOKS very much of that era.  That couldn't possibly when Han actually dies because then we are supposed to believe that the 4th-6th films are prequels to Tokyo Drift which is insanity.  But this insanity is the reality of the the Furious-verse, which has made me very angry.  Another thing that made me angry is that Han's death was relegated to a post credits sting, which is profoundly unfair to his character.  The OTHER reason that his death made me angry was that at the end of the film Gisele sacrifices her own life to save his.  It is an emotional moment that is rendered completely useless because Han himself dies so glibly shortly after we find out who the gaffer of the film is or whatever. It is unfair to Han, it is unfair to the audience, to just kill him off in this way after the credits.  It really bothered me.

The rest of the plot was sort of cut and pasted from a bunch of other movies like James Bond, Jason Bourne, Mission Impossible, etc.  Now instead of drug dealers the team is hunting this crew of terroristy bad guys who have somehow brainwashed Letty into working for them.  The fact that Letty is alive just negates all the character growth of the previous 2 movies.  The fact that she is alive just makes no freaking sense whatsoever.  The fact that she is alive and doesn't remember her previous life but does remember how to drive well and steal shit is just stupid.   Also stupid is how everything is really high tech and Hobbs can do whatever he wants without repercussions.  Hobbs starts out the movie basically destroying the interrogation room of INTERPOL like he is the god damned Hulk and nobody calls him out on it.  The Rock can pretty much do whatever he wants, which is sort of dumb.  Even in James Bond or Mission Impossible movies when they cause too many problems they get yelled at by superiors etc.  Hobbs has no superiors.  He is just like a one man wrecking machine who has the authority to do whatever the hell it is he wants to.  I get that the FBI and the LAPD in the earlier films were sort of ineffectual, but at least the bureaucracy portrayed in those movies was marginally realistic.  Brian used to have bosses who yelled at him.  Remember that?  Not anymore.  There are no bosses, there is not even a tenuous attempt at normalcy and realism.  These films are now just straight up spy action movies from here on out with our heroes just blowing shit up with impunity.  They "look" better, there is more action, more dynamism, better camera work, but I really feel like something has been lost, though the film itself is objectively "better."  I have complicated feelings.

There are some funny moments.  Dom has to go all Muppet Movie/ Blues Brothers and get the gang

Don't ever change

back together and Roman is flying around in a plane with "It's Roman, bitches" literally written on the side full of a bunch of sexy ladies.  Tej is hacking an ATM to give money away to a bunch of kids and speaking pretty lousy Spanish for somebody who is supposed to be fluent.  Ludacris, please work on your Spanish.  Han and Gisele are like fucking super spies pulling guns on the cops.  Those two dudes from before whose names I forget are out of the picture.  Oh good.  I never remembered their names anyway.  Brian and Mia are all cutesy cutesy with their son, Jack.  They also have a chicken.  Dom comes to visit them and Brian expresses his ennui: "It doesn't feel like home even though we have everything down to the beer and the BBQ." Maybe because you are living on the run in a foreign country, dude.  Money can't buy happiness.  Anyway, Dom shows Brian the picture Hobbs got of Letty alive and well and doing some bad shit.  Though he wants to stay with his girlfriend and son, he knows that he has to help Dom find Letty and figure out what is going on.

The crew meets up in London at a super high tech and fancy warehouse/ base of operations.  Straight up James Bond type stuff.  Roman remarks, "Do I smell baby oil?" and Hobbs walks in.  Lol.  Our first shot of Han is him eating from a bag of chips, God bless him.  Roman tries to grab some of his chips but Han turns the bag over and shows him it is empty.  Roman, absolutely requiring chips to eat while everybody is talking, as is dictated by his character, proceeds to ask around if anybody has change for the vending machine because he has no quarters on him even though he is a multi millionaire.  He is doing this while Hobbs is trying to tell the crew about what their mission is, so Hobbs ends up just shooting the vending machine so Roman can get chips out.  Now Roman and Han have chips and we can proceed with the rest of the story.  This whole sequence is super silly. Anyway Hobbs is explaining to the crew that Owen Shaw stole or is trying to steal this Nightshade thing that can take down communications maybe?  I don't even know what this McGuffin is or was supposed to do.  Whatever.  Bad guy wants the thing we need to stop them from getting them the thing. If you do this, Hobbs says, you will all get full pardons.  This is very appealing to Brian especially who really wants to live a normal life again with this family.

Yeah the bad guys have Batmobiles now or whatever

They all converge on Shaw after getting info from his partner who turned, but it is all a ruse to distract from robbing INTERPOL or whatever.  Oh and Shaw drives a Batmobile.  I mean like a legit Batmobile. He blows up the pylons and takes down the building and Dom is after him.  Finally, after so long, we get a really good car chase.  Hobbs is plowing through shit in his Humvee, Dom and the rest are chasing after.  There are snipers on the roof and Han takes them down just in time to save Gisele.  Really really great action sequence here.  Shaw has these things sort of like the EMPs the Miami police had in 2 Fast that can control/ shut down the computers in cars remotely.  He hits Roman's car with one and he goes through a building.  Brian manages to tear the chip thing off of his own car and is in hot pursuit.  This is a busy traffic area in London and there are lot of bystanders jumping out of the way/ becoming collateral damage.  One of Shaw's partners who is this ice queen bitch type has her own Batmobile who takes Brian's car out of the picture.  It is down to Hobbs/ his new partner Gina Carano and Dom.  Dom spots Letty's car and chases her.  He confronts her after cornering her car and she shoots him right in the shoulder.  Ouch.

Roman is not really having all this James Bond type shit.  Dom tells him that you don't turn your back on family even when they do and they have to save Letty at all costs.  Letty meanwhile doesn't seem to recognize her old compatriots at all.  She meets up with the Bizarro crew which consists of Klaus, aka white Hobbs, random Japanese guy, aka bizarro Han, a dude who looks like 50 cent, and that bitchy blonde lady.  Seriously this crew is like the stunt doubles in Spaceballs: just off enough to be really random.  They show her a picture of her and Dom, but she doesn't remember.  AMNESIA!  This is a soap opera.  The FF crew realize that with these magical car controlling dealies that Shaw has they are going to need some older cars that don't have any computers in them.  Tej is on it, because we need an excuse to use more classic cars in this franchise.  Brian meanwhile tries to track down the very special bullet that Letty shot Dom with because of course she used a very special bullet that only a few people sell in London and these people are easily locatable. Han, Roman, and Gisele are all hanging out and Roman asks Han whether he is going to put a ring on it.  Oh and they are both eating chips together because of course they are.

Whatever.  I really lost interest in the plot at this point.  There are a bunch more action sequences.  Letty and Gina Carano's character have a brutal fight in the tube station.  The bizarro Han is like some kind of crazy ninja master taking down all these cops.  Brian goes all the way home to talk to Braga in prison where he like freaking learns nothing worth knowing that couldn't have been figured out another way.  Like seriously what was with that whole plot?  Did they want to pad the movie by 20 minutes?  Man I miss when FF movies were just an hour and a half.  These 2 hour plus actioners just don't work.  There is finally an old fashioned street racing butt jiggle party which is nice to see.  Some things stay the same.

So yeah.  Car chases!  Bombs!  Wanton destruction of property!  Dom just kind of saying fuck you to that Brazilian lady he hooked up with now that Letty is back!  Insanely crazy action sequences!  Just insane.  Shaw kidnaps Mia!  Oh no!  Gina Carano is a traitor! Whatever.  I just felt no emotional attachment to anything that was happening in the movie.  There was just too much action.  In the earlier films, while they were kind of dinky and kind of silly, the focus was just on the cars, on the friendship.  This movie had major, major action sequences literally every 5 minutes.  There was barely any quiet at all.  It was just... I dunno it was just busy.  It was ok.  Sorry but my viewing of the film, as I said, was really dampened by the killing off of both Gisele and Han.  It seemed like a super shitty thing for the franchise to do.

Also, and I really feel like this needs to be said, I really liked the characters more when they were just street racers doing the best they could and didn't just shoot people and stuff.  I mean they had those grappling hooks to steal from the cars in the very first movie, but I guess I just didn't see them as being all that violent.  The "bad guys" had guns and they saved the day with their street racing skills non violently.  Now instead of out witting or out racing bad guys they just like, I dunno, blow them up.  Also the increase in the number of characters makes it very hard to keep track of everyone in these huge action sequences.  The cuts are so fast and there are so many different narratives to keep track of that it loses something.  I like the idea of the team more than I am liking the execution.   There are these little set pieces instead of one cohesive one, and it makes it just too busy.

So yeah.  Whatever.  Jason Statham apparently kills Han not that Yakuza guy who was racing him from before.  They just had to retcon that too.  Ugh.  Suffice it to say this was not my favorite film.  I'm kind of pissed at this series to be honest.

Han, you deserved better.  Rest in Peace my beautiful boy.

Curiouser and Furiouser: A Fast and Furious Watch - Part 5: Fast Five

Just to recap: I am watching all the Fast and Furious movies having never seen them before and without any knowledge of what they are about. This is the fifth part of my series, you can view from the beginning Here. On to the review.

What in the heck did I just watch?! I don't mean this in a negative way, not at all, but having just seen 4 previous Fast and Furious movies I can't even say that this is a "Fast and Furious" movie. I mean, obviously it is, obviously this is the direction the new movies are going in, but after just watching 4 movies that basically have the same exact plot this one REALLY came out of left field. Which was refreshing. Watching a completely different movie was definitely refreshing, but man oh man it was SO unexpected especially since I just watched the 4th installment the other day. The characters have completely new and different skill sets, the entire plot was completely different, everything about this movie was new. Justin Lin, who once again directs this installment, really went all out on this film 

Our story begins exactly where the last one left off, with Brian, Mia, and the two guys who helped them before (whose names I still do not know) driving alongside the prison transport truck that is hauling Dom off to a lifelong sentence. Two guesses how that turns out. It ends in a bus rolling over multiple times at high speed with apparently nobody getting any injuries and Dom and co driving off into the sunset. We see news reports of the breakout, featuring several local LA newscasters I recognized, in what I think was the first time the events of the movies made any kind of impact on the in-world national consciousness. Dom, Brian and Mia are now wanted criminals and their names are splashed around on the cover of newspapers etc. Already this changes the shape and scope of the film from something that takes place in a very limited microcosm of street racers, the cops that hunt street racers, and gang members who control the street racing crews, to something that is on the national or international stage. When next we find our favorite anti-heroes, they are in Rio. The sweeping helicopter shots of the city are gorgeous, and it immediately strikes me that this movie must have been FAR more expensive to make than its predecessors.

Guys I'm pretty sure this shot cost more than the first movie

Checking the internet I see that the budget for this film was a whopping 125 million: 40 million more than Tokyo Drift and Fast & Furious and nearly 90 million more than the first movie. Well no wonder it looks better. Even before we get to the actors' salaries, which certainly increased with the addition of more names, the set pieces, the action sequences, etc looks more impressive, more expensive, bigger. The shots of Mia and Brian as they wander the slums of Rio recalled to mind scenes from other big budget films like Mission Impossible. It turns out that that was a fairly apt comparison, even before I realized it.

Mia and Brian wander into a Brazilian slum and are surrounded by gunmen, but it looks like they know who leads them, though who this could be I have no idea until out pops Vince, aka mesh vest bro from the first movie!! Wow I had no idea he was going to turn up again.

Baby!!

Apparently in addition to ditching his early 2000s era mesh vests, Vince has a beard and a family now! Awww. His baby is really cute. Everybody catches up inside of Vince's house but then Mia excuses herself to go throw up. Of course in movies women never have the stomach flu and it is obvious that she is preggers. Go Brian! Go Mia! BABIES!!! Vince tells the two about a job that he knows is coming up. They are uncertain about taking it, but they look like they are in pretty rough shape and could probably use the money.  

Apparently they agree and we see them next aboard a train travelling through the Brazilian desert...er... plains....er... is there a place in Brazil that looks like this because this scene was clearly not shot in Brazil. Anyway, back to business: stealing DEA seized cars from a moving train. Oh so this is a heist movie now? Yes, Fast Five is a straight up heist movie, but a cool one. Vince pulls up in a cool dune buggy thing with his crew and then they carve a hole in the side of the train with a plasma torch deal. While it is moving.

Crazy moving train action nonsense

Damn. The dudes jump into the train and its DOM! who has a little reunion with his sis and Brian. Then one of the other guys gets into one of the cars and somehow the truck pulls it on to the back and lowers it down. Super super complicated shit. But things look kind of weird to Dom, and he suspects something is up with this heist when he overhears two of the guys talking to each other. When it is Mia's turn he tells her to drive the car in the opposite direction of the other guy. His suspicions turn out to be correct and the guys on the crew work for the big drug lord boss guy and everything turns to shit. There are explosions, shooting, crazy, crazy stuff. Dom straight up dives a car off the train and rescues Brian and then the two of them drive the car off of the bridge and jump out to safety. There are some crazy Mission Impossible-esque elements in the action.

 Also Mission Impossible-esque: the next scene finds Dom and Brian hanging by their wrists in some warehouse or something. You know... that scene that happens in literally every single movie about a spy where a guy is chained by his wrists to the ceiling in a dimly lit warehouse and some henchmen beat them up. I think there is a whole page for it on TV tropes. The big cartel boss Reyes is played by Joaquim de Almeida, that one actor who has played a big cartel boss in probably 6 or 7 movies/ TV shows including 24 and Desperado. It just feels right he is the big boss in this movie. At any rate they don't get the info they are looking for and Reyes leaves and Dom and Brian escape, 'natch, because they are like super spies now I guess and not just street racers or street racing police people. The only thing we learn from this scene is that there is something in the car that Mia stole that these drug people want back.

 It is at this point that we are introduced to Hobbs, a federal agent played by The Rock. Hobbs is a fucking hardcore action hero bad ass. Of course he is, he is played by The Rock. But his entrance into this franchise is really pivotal. Up until this point, the people who have been hunting Dom and Brian have been kind of been ineffectual cops or Feds like Captain Dexter's Dad or that chubby black guy that Brian used to work for. One of his very first lines is "Get the fuck out of my way" which I think is the first F bomb in the series, though don't hold me to that. This isn't a guy who plays around, that much is clear. Two DEA agents are dead back on that train and Dom and Brian are the only suspects. He is going to track them down no matter what it takes.

The FF crew are blissfully unaware, just trying to recoup, when Vince decides to sneak into the garage and steal a chip that was inside one of the cars. Dom angrily confronts him about going behind their back to which Vince replies that nobody ever listens to him and Dom always turns things to shit which like, I dunno.. isn't exactly wrong. They part ways not on the best of terms and then Brian uses his hacking? skills to figure out what was on the chip. Oh so they are hackers now. Neat.  It turns out what is on the chip are details about all the drop spots for this drug dealer guy.  This seems like a bad thing to keep on a GPS chip, but as we learned in Fast & Furious we are in the future now and in the future everyone has high end GPS instead of that dumb map Brian had to use in the first movie. Remember when Brian had to use an actual paper map to find a location?  Ah.. memories.

The Rock rolls into the favela to get the FF crew and Vince's helper dudes pull guns on him but he has bigger guns and then the drug dealers come and they start shooting and everybody is running away and... hell, this was a very confusing action sequence.

 Everybody is shooting at everybody else and The Rock like straight up breaks a dudes neck and stabs a guy.  I have been watching this movie for about 35 minutes now and there have been MAYBE 5 minutes of cars.  You'd think we would get more cars in an FF movie, but apparently not anymore.  Anyway, they kind of protect the lady cop who has been helping the Rock and now she starts to have second thoughts about whether the FF crew are really bad or whether they shouldn't be going after these drug dealers instead, but The Rock has a really big hard on for capturing Vin Diesel.  Apparently the FF crew was stealing that gas in Fast & Furious to just give it away for free like some Robin Hood shit, and it doesn't jive with lady cop that they would be killers now, but Rock isn't buying it.  Well that explains why they were stealing gas at any rate. Wonder why they couldn't have mentioned that at SOME point in the 4th movie.

Anyway, back to our heroes.  After escaping, Brian and Mia reveal that they are expecting and Uncle Dom is all excited.

God I love this man

 Brian is worried that he will be a shitty dad like his was, but Dom assures him he will be a good dad.  Lots of cute dad feels. They then decide they should just use the chip they got from the car for one last job: use the GPS coordinates to find Reyes' money spots and steal all his money.  This is a big job, though and they are going to need a team.  SO THEY RECRUIT EVERYBODY!!! Han! Roman! Ludacris! Gisele!  Those dudes from before! Yay!  The very first thing that Han does on screen is eat some chips and I am so freaking pumped.  Who will eat more, I wonder: Roman or Han?  These are the questions that deserve answers.  Unfortunately, Roman and Dom don't really like each other and kind of get off on the wrong foot.  He's ready to bail until they find out that the score is 100 million and his share would be 11 million dollars.  "11 million sounds like a whole lot of vaginal activity to me," Roman says unironically.  Vaginal activity.  I can't even with this guy.

On to the plan.  Step one: they go into one of the drug dealer's places wearing masks and carrying guns.  Step two: they light all the money on fire.  Step three: profit... ?  Then they take their masks off revealing who they are for some reason.  Why?!  I don't understand this plan at all until I see that Reyes is super pissed and decides to move all his money and the crew plan to take it when it is on the move.

Um... what now? 

 Ah ok, I get it now.  This is why they need street racers: to go after the cars.  But then instead of going after the cars, they.. don't?  Roman spots the cars on the road transporting the money and is literally eating a sandwich and has to swallow before he reports this very important information.  God love Tyrese his constant eating.  Anyway the money is now being brought to a police station.  Dom says this changes nothing.  Um.. I think it changes at least something, right?  I thought you got this crew together for street racing purposes.  "This went from mission impossible to mission insanity," says Roman.  Tyrese really gets all the best/ dumbest lines in this movie, but he isn't wrong.  Hobbs meanwhile is following all of these developments because apparently he has some kind of magical computers that can run facial recognition on people wearing masks.  Though he doesn't know what is really happening.   Neither do I, to be honest.

Roman gets sent into the building in disguise as a special agent and distracts the dude in the evidence locker with his non stop talking trying to get in to see the safe that the guy doesn't notice that he has just accepted a random box from a stranger.  The random box opens up inside the safe and out pops a cute little robot that Ludacris made because he makes robots apparently.  Ludacris also apparently knows

lol

about safes.  "I had a life before you knew me," he says, hand waving away any questions about how he went from owner of a body shop/ street racing crew organizer to master safe cracker, but whatever.  He did do that cool thing in 2 Fast where he made the bridge go up and down so it is clear he has always had a lot of technological know how.  Whatever, he is the "tech" guy now.  They are all sitting around the plans and Roman is eating graham crackers.  At this point I think Tyrese is eating more than Han.  Then the crew put a bomb in the bathroom of the police station, which explodes while the poor evidence locker guy is taking a shit, and the two dudes from before go in as the cleaning crew to hook into the security cameras which is also a thing they apparently know how to do.

"Let's go get some cars," Brian says, finally.  Yay!  Here we go, at a booty shaking street-racing dance party.  Finally things are familiar to me.  "Home sweet home," says Dom.  Oh no but they are recognized since they are international criminals who also robbed the biggest drug lord in town.  The street racing crew leader says its okay to race, though.  What a nice guy.  They get to race for the new cars they need.  I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for an actual street race when... nope, they just cut to them already having the cars.  In a Fast and Furious movie they literally just cut the actual race.  I am just... what is this movie?  They do get to test the cars out though, so there is SOME driving at least.  They are trying to find a car that can drive faster than the security cameras.  Gisele does the best, and Han is watching her with interest.  "I think I'm in love," Han says.  Ugh.  Whatever.  Why did they take away all the gay vibes Han was putting off.

 Also, about Han... they still have yet to explain how he escaped from that fiery crash in Japan.  I

mm chips

guess we will get to that eventually?  I don't know.  Anyway now it is Han's turn.  Han is eating at the bar (Eating score: Han 2, Roman 2) and Gisele intuits that Han recently quit smoking which is why he is always doing something with his hands.  She says it was the same for her when she got out of the Army.  BACKSTORY!  Han is hard core falling in love as Gisele goes up to Roman and flirts with him enough for him to grab her ass.  Then they somehow pull the hand print off of her swimsuit so they can get into the safe.  This whole thing is so very very Mission Impossible.

Eventually they decide that trying to out drive the cameras is sort of stupid so they just steal themselves some cop cars which makes much more sense.  FINALLY we get a proper street race with Han, Dom, Brian and Roman racing in police cars, which makes them very happy.  Roman is too busy playing with the lights and stuff and Han is probably distracted thinking of Gisele or something so the race comes down to Dom and Brian, and Dom lets Brian win, though Brian isn't aware that he did.  Han and Roman notice, though, and think it is hilarious. The next day, Mia is shopping in the market and Vince runs into her and pulls her away just before the bad guys spot her.  Apparently there was a tracker on her.  She brings Vince back to the crew and he asks Dom if he can join the heist and Dom says they are family etc and I am 100% predicting Vince is going to turn out to be some Bro-dus Iscariot.

Look at Rambo over here

 Mia reveals her pregnancy to the rest of the gang, which explains why she wasn't drinking etc and they laugh and it is all very heartwarming and is of course immediately interrupted by the police.  Dom and Hobbs fight and Dom eventually gets the upper hand but decides not to actually just kill Hobbs with a wrench and they are all arrested.  Unfortunately, Reyes' crew ambushes the armored car and a gun battle follows.  Grenades are exploding all over the place, guns firing, legit action movie territory.  Dom rescues Hobbs and pulls him to the safety of the armored car.  They kill SO many people, Jesus Christ.  This is bar none the most violent scene in all 5 movies so far.  They retreat to relative safety, but Vince isn't going to make it.  He tells Dom to look after his son, also named Dominic (aww feels), right before he dies.  I was totally wrong on him being a traitor.  Sorry I ever doubted you, Vince.

Dom wants to continue on and everybody is a little wary until Hobbs says he is in because he wants to kill the son of a bitch who killed his men.  Ah yes, the old ancient proverb: The bronemy of my bronemy is my bro.  Apparently the idea that Hobbs, a US Federal Agent, could just rob a Brazilian police station, as corrupt as it is, without creating an international incident is just fine by everybody.  They break through the wall and basically just attach the safe via two wires attached to two of the police cars, driven by Dom and Brian, who drive away.  So they are driving down the street with this safe dragging behind them, taking out trees, taking out other cars, just wanton destruction of property. This entire scene is insanity.

I just... what? 

 I have no fucking clue how they think they can evade police with a several ton safe just dragging behind them.  The rest of the crew is kind of running interference on the police/ drug dealers or something, ramming cars left and right.  Dom and Brian realize their plan of driving a gigantic safe around is probably not the best idea and they aren't going to get out of this.  Dom reminds Brian that he is going to be a father now and cuts him loose, using nitrous in his car to pull the weight of the safe behind his own car alone so Brian can get to safety.  They do this under a little overpass deal.  Dudes in roof mounted machine guns are firing at Dom and then his car flips dramatically and crashes into Reyes' car.  Hobbs rolls in and shoots Reyes and then tells Dom that he can't just let him go, but he will give him 24 hours to get out of down.  Of course Hobbs is going to take the safe so I think that all of this was for nothing until the lady cop opens the door and it is empty.  Dun DUN DUUUUNNN.


Yes, apparently the safes were swapped during that 30 seconds under the overpass and later, when they are all together again, Ludacris opens the safe and like Scrooge McDuck fucking piles of money pour out.  Dom leaves some for Vince's wife and kid and the group go their separate ways.  The two idiot driver guys (WHOSE NAMES I STILL DO NOT KNOW) lose all their money in Monaco like a couple of dinguses.  Ludacris uses the money to get a nice little shop for himself to live a quieter life and then Tyrese rolls up to visit him in this hot car with a hot babe inside.  Apparently he got it from a sheikh in Abu Dabi and it is the only one in the Western Hemisphere.. or IS it, because Ludacris apparently has the exact same ridiculous car.  Lol.  Meanwhile Han makes out with Gisele while driving, which doesn't seem very safe.  "I thought you wanted to go to Tokyo," Gisele asks.  "We'll get there eventually," Han replies.  Wait... is this movie still supposed to take place BEFORE Tokyo Drift? I mean I was under the impression that he like faked his death and somehow made it to Rio or

Lookin' good Billy Ray!

something, but now they are saying this is all a prequel?!  How can this movie take place before Tokyo Drift when Han is obviously older?  Or are they saying he is going to go BACK to Tokyo? Is Han a time traveler? I DON'T UNDERSTAND! Brian and Mia are on a beach together and Dom shows up with lady cop who is his girlfriend I guess and this whole thing reminds me of the end of Trading Places. Everybody is so happy.  Awww.  Brian asks for one final race to settle it once and for all (sure, they will NEVER race again) and... credits.  But wait!  There is a mid credits scene!  Is it Nick Fury asking them to join the Avengers?!  No.. it is Hobbs with Eva Mendes! who tells him that there was a robbery in Berlin.  "Was it Toretto?" Hobbs asks (man he REALLY doesn't like Dom).  No, it turns out the person in the robbery is... Letty!?! WHAAAAAAAAT!


Stray Thoughts:

- Letty?????? I am really struggling to figure out her motivations for faking her own death other than... cuz.

- Ok but really is Han a time traveler???

- So I still haven't seen Batman v Superman and I didn't know who Gal Gadot was when I saw Fast & Furious.  Now that I know Gisele is Wonder Woman I am like... meh?  I dunno. Her character was super boring in the 4th movie and in this movie she was nothing but eye candy and also like this plot device to prove that Han was straight or something.

- I am glad that a lot of the characters got some more depth but this movie makes it SO obvious that this series wasn't planned up until this point. Now that the movies ARE more clearly connected to each other, maybe narratively they will make a little more sense.  HAHAHA who am I kidding?  I don't like these movies for rational reasons.

- Ok so Ludacris' song during the end credits "Furiously Dangerous" was SO painfully bad.  You can do better than this, Ludacris.

- It seems so strange that just 2 months ago I had never seen a Fast and Furious movie and now I have seen 5.  Moving on to Fast and Furious 6 next week.  I hope it will be just as batshit insane as this one.