Fast Five comes out gunning with an opening that open your eyes up and kicks out your adrenaline. It's a sequence that involves cars, guns and a prisoner heist. Too bad the rest of the film is a sort of Jekyll and Hyde action movie. It's all hit and miss from there as our boy Vin Diesel and his posse which includes a more ripped than usual Paul Walker escape to Latin America as the FBI -lead by The Rock- chases them through tunnels and streams in beautiful Rio De Janeiro. I'm a sucker for heist pictures but this one didn't quench my thirst at all. Its preposterous screenplay is juggled with lots of testosterone fueled muscle/action. I had a few chuckles here and there whenever one of the main protagonists would open his or her mouth and say something that is supposed to be deep? or profound? You won't find deep or profound in this film, all you'll find is a by the books Hollywood formula.
Not to say that I was a big fan of the series. I didn't like any of the first 4 movies. But the somewhat positive reviews that came out with this one had me expecting an entertaining ride. Suffice to say this is definitely not the movie I was expecting. Its characters are filled with pompous air and are not sketched out enough to even bring a glimmer of excitement. If you want real good action check out a great 80's buddy cop flick like Lethal Weapon 2 or Die Hard on DVD. Summer 2011 has not had a very kind start in terms of quality and this new film won't help its cause any further. On a side note; Has Vin Diesel ever made a good movie? The answer is yes but you have to go way back more than 10 years ago to find our man duking it out with darkened creatures in Pitch Black. His spurts of quality have been DOA ever since.
Report Card - ★★
Not much to say about Priest except that I saw it in 3d and it was most clearly the most useless 3d one can watch in a movie theatre these days. These studios really need to stop shoving this cinematic medium down our faces. Unless you shoot with 3d cameras -such as is what James Cameron and Robert Zemeckis are doing- don't release your movie in 3d just to have audiences churn out an extra 3 bucks for stupid plastic glasses that were probably made by Taiwanese children and should actually cost a quarter. As for the film itself, it sucked.
Report Card - ★