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Fast and Furious: On the Road Again…

See that light over there? That’s our future. Let’s race to see who gets there first.

Rating: 6 out of 10

There are times when a movie ends and you just feel sad because you don’t get to spend any more time with those characters. No more twists and turns in their stories and no more chances for possible redemption, if they haven’t already achieved it. Yet sometimes you get lucky and a sequel is made, then if you’re really lucky a sequel is made of that, giving you the much sought after “franchise”. Certain movies you can look at from the very first moment and know they are destined for the franchise route, but I would challenge anyone to look back into 2001 at the original The Fast and the Furious and claim they saw this coming. It spawned three subsequent films, with this newest chapter opening to over $100 million dollars worldwide in its first weekend, a record for any April movie opening in history.

No palm reader in the world would have taken that bet.

Yet Universal Pictures seemingly struck gold with Fast and Furious and there is an entire pantheon of reasons why this worked. First, and most notable, was the return of the original cast making this movie feel much more like a sequel and less like a spin-off (ie: The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift). The two main machismo machines, Vin Diesel and Paul Walker, haven’t shared the screen in eight years, so this was a huge draw for people who actually stood up for the quality of the original movie. Secondly, the original teaser trailer and the first theatrical trailer were both cut extremely well, showcasing the scope of the car stunts and the parkour-influenced foot chase with Paul Walker, which will go down in history as a close second to the foot race in Point Break with Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze (Swayze throws a dog at Reeves, that cannot be topped!). The third element, which is a little less apparent, is that this movie is an “interquel”, meaning it is not placed exactly in continual sequence with the rest. Fast and Furious actually takes place in the timeline before Tokyo Drift, which is shown to the audience in an early scene where Toretto tells his friend Han, also reprised by Sung Kang, to get out of town for a while. Han replies by saying, “I hear they’re doing some crazy stuff in Tokyo.” So they aren’t necessarily pulling the Highlander 2 maneuver, where they just ignore that the movie ever happened and continue the series without ever mentioning it, but instead they are treating Tokyo Drift more as an off-shoot, which keeps it legitimate in the universe of the characters. All in all they had every element in place for a new chapter that frankly no one thought would ever happen, but it did, in a big way.

Diesel returns to the role of Dominic Toretto, the mad-dog roughneck of the road racing world, who is now running a gasoline stealing outfit south of the border. When one heist goes slightly off the rails, Torreto is forced to move along without his comrades and his girlfriend, Letty, played once again by Michelle Rodriguez. On the other side of the border, bad boy FBI agent, Brian O’Conner, reprised by Paul Walker, is hot on the trail of a massive mafia cartel. When another mafia killing cuts too close to home, O’Conner and Toretto have to team up once again to infiltrate the cartel and bring it down. Both men are fighting for justice, yet they have slightly different definitions for it.

On paper the plot line actually holds together really well, but let’s be honest, no one watches these movies for the plot. It’s all about the cars, the crashes and the chaos. Fast and Furious makes a decent effort in all those areas, bringing the car races back to the forefront of the movie, without losing the sense of needing a storyline. That was one of the things the last chapter in this franchise, Tokyo Drift, was lacking. The racing never escalated, never changed from nearly the first screech of the tires in the movie to the last. While in Fast and Furious, the races did change throughout the film, they lose a little credit for placing their most impressive race about one-third of the way in. The scene where Diesel and Walker have to race each other along with two others in hopes of being chosen for the cartel driving squad is full of variety and intensity, yet later on the races begin to feel a touch redundant. Also, that first race had pertinent meaning for the story, whereas the later races feel tossed in just because they needed another scene of cars zooming by. No matter how silly the movie you still need to make the action on the screen make sense, otherwise the audience will drift away.

Diesel and Walker return to form in these characters and give us what we all know and love them for. Diesel proves once more that he can intimidate with only a glance and also the fact that he never sweats, ever! Walker still retains his boyish charms and continues to be endearing when he tries to act all tough on screen against Diesel. Yet, while Diesel wins the machismo battle, Walker always looks more comfortable on screen with the ladies, as he proves once more with his re-ignited love affair with Toretto’s sister, Mia, played once again by Jordana Brewster. Brewster still shows her skill in being able to make a believable on-screen connection with people who aren’t all that talented in the lighter arena of human emotions. As for Rodriguez, she is one of the original four and used heavily in the marketing of the film, but she is in only a few short minutes of the movie and really boils down to a plot device.

Recommendation: If you liked the first film in the series, you should have no problem enjoying this one. It still has holes and many parts of it could have made more sense with some basic story adjustments, but in terms of this series it is just under the original. Plus, you might as well keep track of what happens so you can be all set for the next chapter, which Paul Walker just signed on to. Faster and Furiouser!

Babylon A.D.: A Future No One Wanted to See

No one knows it, but I’m watching The Fast and the Furious behind these lenses on repeat. Damn, I was good back then.

It can be tough to remind an audience of something they used to love long ago. Cut to eight years ago where fresh faced post-millennium crowds were stunned by the sheer machismo of a character known as Riddick and the actor who brought him life, known as Vin Diesel. Talk of the next big action star shot around town through phone lines, electric wiring and every wireless network available. Vin was handed the golden ticket, but unfortunately he chose to cash it in on the wrong show. After another huge boost from the Fast and Furious franchise, which he helped create, Vin walked away and jumped into XXX which turned out to be a huge disaster. Since then Vin has stumbled through the action world, briefly turning in a finely tuned family performance in The Pacifier, but never making it back to his once renowned action star fame. Here, in the dark, dreary world of Babylon A.D., Vin was set for a comeback. Poised on the edge of a Blade Runner-esque feature that looked to relaunch the man-myth in the same fashion as Pitch Black did all those years ago. Would it work? Would Vin muscle his way to the top once again?

Not this time.

Babylon A.D. is hamstrung from the start. Here’s a brief overview of the story: Vin plays a smuggler who’s pretty much left the game, but is dragged back in for one big score which could give him the chance at a new life. The deal is he has to transport a young girl into America in six days. Tons of people are after her for different reasons, which Vin tries to ignore at first, but finds himself tangled in her web. This last job forces him to make a choice between caring about himself or caring about others. On paper it all sounds fairly straight forward and easy to get across, but somewhere in the translation from page to screen this simple story became so convoluted and riddled with plot holes that the director himself went on a vulgarity laced tirade against the studio for ruining it. Matheiu Kassovitz railed against Fox Studios for cutting an extra seventeen minutes from the final cut and also not allowing him to shoot what he felt was an integral scene to the story. We as the audience will never know if those missing minutes would have turned the tide of the film, but when the credits to roll as it is the feeling of huge and important facts missing is inescapable. The most glaring of all is the big hook from the trailer where we see a rocket propelled missle explode within inches of the young girl, as if blocked by a force field, but where the field came from, how she created it or what it means about her powers is explained only in the most inept fashion. This would be the only moment the audience could emotionally connect with Vin Diesel’s character since he couldn’t understand any of it either.

In the acting realm, Vin didn’t do a terrible job. He brought back a little touch of the gruff, no nonsense brute we all came to love back in the day. Yet later in the movie he shows even he has an achillies heel, no matter how tough he may seem. A late in the third act crying scene was absolutely painful to watch and should have been cut from the first moment of rehearsal. Put him behind the wheel of a car or the trigger of a gun, but never, ever put Vin behind a sheen of fake tears. Michelle Yeoh tries to add some acting chops to the flick, but even she gets lost in the convoluted plot twists. Stuck smack dab in the middle of this bleak futuristic mess is Melanie Thierry, who plays Aurora, the mysterious explosion proof girl. Piercing blue eyes aside, she has the innocence and purity the role calls for, but not the experience and talent yet to pull the audience in with her.  Once again though, I hate to give her too much flack since everything really starts with the script and the writing just wasn’t there to support her.

In the end Babylon A.D. came to the screen as a great concept, but terribly executed and we’ll never know if that was due to the unfinished and unpolished script, terrible directing by Kassovitz or another example of a movie studio sticking its fingers where they don’t belong. Whatever the case, it was a missed opportunity for Vin Diesel to recapture his former glory. Luckily for him, he already signed on to return to his star making character in Fast and Furious, the fourth part of the franchise, reuniting all four members of the original cast. If done right, Vin still might get the bump he was looking for.

Recommendation: Watch Blade Runner again, or Equilibrium, or Gattaca, or take a nap.

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Daily Musings 3/7

1 – If you think you can come up with a limerick better than “There once was a man from Nantucket…”, take your rhyming skills over to this online listing of voted on limericks. [thanks, Erin]

2 – I’m honestly frightened if this is what they are doing all day over in Russia. We are all doomed. [via Pandachute]

3 – Only a few more of these Touhou videos exist, so enjoy them slowly, like a nice tasty plate of chocolate chip cookie dough.

4 – Don’t call it a comeback! It’s official, the entire main cast of The Fast and the Furious is back for the fourth installment of the speed racing franchise. Vin Diesel and Paul Walker were the first to sign back on, but quietly Jordanna Brewster attached herself to the project and now they have announced the triumphant return of Michelle Rodriguez, after her stint in the poke for drunk driving and various other offenses. My Friday just officially became AWESOME! [via FilmDrunk]

5 – As you all know I am on the Obamamania train, but I will say here and now that if this kid was running for President, I would vote for him in a heartbeat. This took major courage to do in front of his entire congregation and I only wish I had thought of it myself during that all-too-built-up ceremony. Why do people seem to get stupider as they get older? [via CollegeHumor]

6 – Last month I had a link in my Charity of the Month section to Autism Speaks, a wonderful charity that donates time, money and services to the growing number of people with this condition. One of the main issues for people who have the more intense forms of Autism is their lack of coherent communication with the outside world. Now, as shown in this news report from the UK, the internet has once again placed itself as a link between one group looking to be properly understood and the rest of the world. [via William Gibson]

7 – If you have about ten minutes, you can be led down on of the most hilarious trails of gun-toting fantasy to be found online. Please take a moment and learn the trials and tribulations of the Mall Ninja!

8 – Here’s the newest Iron Man poster. Is it just me or does Jeff Bridges look like really pissed off version of Patrick Stewart?

9 – Can someone please draw up a prescription for cartoon Prozac and send it to Jon Arbuckle c/o Garfield Minus Garfield. Thanks, I would feel much better about his personal safety.

10 – I think a bill should be passed requiring every customer service rep or cold calling operator to have a chart plastered over there phone detailing the difference in time zones. This measure will hopefully curb the prevalence of idiots who forget that even though they are at work at 9:45am in Washington DC, the person they are trying to reach in Los Angeles is still softly in bed at 6:45am, enjoying the last fleeting moments of a dream where he was going to go free climbing outside a broken down dorm building. Grrrr…(yes, you are right in thinking this actually happened to me this morning).