Fast Five

FAST FIVE (2011) - May 2, 2011
Easily the best of the Fast and Furious sequels, though that's really not a very high watermark, this was a decent action film about pretty much every surviving character from the Furious series coming together to pull of a huge heist in Rio.  While Justin Lin has undeniably improved as an action director, he's basically just gone from terrble to competent.  There are some pretty good set-pieces here (particularly the absurdly over-the-top but kinda awesome scene in which an enormous safe -- essentially a big wrecking ball -- is dragged around the streets of Rio) but Lin is still a little too edit-happy, with some over-edited sequences being less effective than they should have been.  Particularly, a big fight between Vin Diesel and the Rock was good, but could have been great had it been directed with a bit more skill.  Regardless, the Rock makes for a pretty awesome addition to the series, and was actually one of the best things about the film -- absurdly muscular and looking like he's constantly about to explode out of his weirdly small shirts, he was a pretty huge badass in this movie, and probably one of the most macho characters ever committed to celluloid.  Every time he wasn't on the screen I was basically just waiting for him to come back, as he was probably the most interesting character in the bunch.  **1/2