Japanese title: Wild Speed MEGA MAX
This is the one with the Ocean's-style heist, where the gang tears up the city with a vault attached to their rides, bouncing it around like a bar of soap.
The formula is essentially the same as the last flick, but this time they put aside most pretenses of seriousness in favor of one-liners and tongue-in-cheek overblown action. The supporting characters from the previous films, whom we had already forgotten about, also come together to form a team of misfits with no real purpose. Justin Lin’s obsession with Han is still a mystery. He keeps doing prequels to keep him alive so that he can… eat chips?
The over-the-top action sequences have finally hit that sweet spot of trashy goodness and visual impact enough to distract from the cringe-worthy writing and directing. Even the terrible acting serves its purpose in this context. It's a shame that The Rock's role as the good cop was a bit of a letdown. They could have given him more screen time, but as usual, the family always requires a baddie that’s even worse than they are to justify their morally questionable actions.
Actual score: 4.5
Guilty pleasure score: 7.5 with sparse 8.5 moments
Final score: 6
Why do I keep watching these sequels? Oh, right, the first scene with the bus, never mind. (And Jordana Brewster too).
THe three fugitives, Mia, her boyfriend and former FBI agent O'conner, and her brother Dom, are on the run again. In RIo this time. O'Conner takes a bad job that gets them stuck between a Rio businessman who wants his property and an elite government team that's hunting them and led by a character played by Dwayne Johnson. There's also an interesting (if not surprising) Mia subplot and a RIo female cop/Dom relationship subplot.
I always forget how surprisingly (for an action flick) good these movies in the Fast and Furious franchise can be. There's all the action, seriously hard core action. Flying off cliffs, gun fights, an awesome fist fight between Johns and Vin Diesel. And then there are caring and gentle scenes that are actually done really, really well. And stuff that's subtle, not your typical action flick fare, but nice.
I do wish that we got to see more of Rio, or at least some of the scenery in general at a slower pace. 'Cause the movie was most definitely a high octane, fast paced movie.
Review by Dahj AshaBlockedParentSpoilers2022-05-07T23:32:26Z
7.5/10 - Now the F&F movies are getting better again.
First of all: I like the nice continuation of the last movie! It was great that they already teased the rescue of Dom at the end of the last movie but only showed the full scene at the beginning of this movie. That way the last movie had a satisfying ending and this movie can continue right where the last one ended. Well done :)
Hobbs is cool new character and a good fit for Dom :D It's also nice to see Han back (even though it sucks that he won't remain around - unless they make him survive the car crash in Tokyo).
In fact, it's awesome to see the whole team reunited. Brian, Dom, and Mia are of course the most important but there are so many cool additional characters. E.g., Geisele is pretty cool, Elena is nice, and Rome is pretty funny. And of course the important family aspect (from the Toretto's) is back and more prominent now.
It was also interesting how they had to deal with Hobbs and Reyes at the same time. That double attack was kinda fun.
And it's lovely how Hobbs and Dom kinda bonded after Dom saved Hobbs' live. It was nice when Hobbs said that he's in.
And it looks like Letti's still alive? Not sure if that's a good or bad thing but at least for Dom it should b e a good thing. Stretches the story a bit more though.