Director: Justin Lin
Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Tyrese Gibson, Christopher "Ludacris" Bridges, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Gal Gadot, Sung Kang, Luke Evans, Elsa Pataky, Gina Carano, Kim Kold, Joe Taslim, David Ajala, Thure Lindhardt, Shea Whigham, John Ortiz, Rita Ora.
Justin Lin's fourth and final instalment in the series bringing it to my home, of London. I don't know whether this was to appease us British folk or just to justify the new villain; or just to fly about and change locations which isn't a bad thing. We've had L.A., Miami, Tokyo, Mexico, Rio and now London.
There's one major problem with London when it comes to street racing. Traffic. And unfortunately, like very much of the rest of the film, it gives a totally unrealistic representation of congested London. The race scenes were filmed near Wembley and later edited to look like central London but even at 2am the streets surrounding Piccadilly are seldom quiet enough to perform drifts let alone an actual race. Probably the same as Tokyo.
As the previous film left off, Hobbs gave Dom and Familia 24hours head start, but there was a clanger left at the end of 5 which resurrects a key character from the franchise which Hobbs uses as leverage to have Dom and team work for him to bring down Brit super villain Shaw, who's played relatively well by Luke Evans.
I admire Evans for being able to portray both good and bad guys with relative ease. I enjoyed his role as Bard in The Hobbit and he makes a good ruthless bad guy here. Though this is next level stuff, he also brings an array of tricks and has his own team of badasses, including one amnesiac Letty.
Another thing about London, is actually crime. Like all major cities, crime is unfortunately London is well versed with and opportunists are always taking advantage of the next available score. Though it was rumoured and reported by Destination Hackney that Dwayne Johnson, dressed in full special agent attire actually stopped some would-be thieves trying to break into some vans. I know seeing The Rock come at me would make me turn tail and scarper.
Dispensing all probability the action is way out there, over-exaggerated, unbelievable and at times ridiculous making many sensible heads in the audience ask questions like "how long is that runaway?" But, it's highly entertaining and again, the fight scenes are good, especially the almost comedic bout with Roman and Han versus The Raid's Joe Taslim, and Rodriguez exchanging punches with MMA fighter Gina Carano.
Everyone should now be familiar with most of the characters, knowing who's who and what they bring to the team. Roman as usual, providing the jokes being either the crack or the butt of. There's a witty script writing with some great ridicules between Roman and Hobbs, especially the ad-libbed ending where Ludacris actually spits his beers in laughing shock.
The story may feel a little dragged out and possibly anti-climatic which probably happens because this story was initially written into two separate films but with a little reworking of the plot, throwing in a couple of twists here and there which results in the double ending. It's almost as if they were writing the story as they were going along filling and adding parts in just to allow for the key action sequences.
This film certainly appeals more for the teenage action junkie in myself and only really survives on the huge cast and the fact it's part of a highly successful franchise. That said, the action is slick, even if stupid and it does exactly what it's supposed to do, entertain you.
Up Next: Fast & Furious 7
Running Time: 7
The Cast: 8
Performance: 7
Direction: 8
Story: 4
Script: 6
Creativity: 7
Soundtrack: 6
Job Description: 9
The Extra Bonus Point: 0
Would I buy the Blu-ray?: Already do.
62% 6/10
