Classic Movie Review: 'Fast Five' is Sooo Dumb but Sooo Fun

Boy, Fast Five is a dumb movie. Truly, Fast Five is remarkably, unabashedly ludicrous. The dunderheaded stupidity of Fast Five is both a virtue and a curse as it frees the filmmakers from the boundaries of logic, of rationality, of taste; it's dumb to a point where you sympathize with the idiocy as you would sympathize with that one kid in a grade school for whom 2 + 2 is a monumental challenge. On the other hand, Fast Five is so dumb at times it's physically painful to watch. But it's also so much fun that it is downright irresistible.

Since the last time we saw our favorite street racing hood, Dominic Torretto (Vin Diesel), he's been arrested and now is being sentenced to life in prison without parole. Of course, Fast Five would be awfully short if Dom actually went to prison and thus Dom's buddy Brian (Paul Walker) flushes his own freedom, and that of his girlfriend, Dom's sister Mia (Paget Brewster), down the toilet by staging an escape so monumentally, idiotically, violent it would have maimed Superman. And yet, our Dom walks away without a scratch.

Cut to the streets of Rio De Janeiro where I can't be the only critic who was longing for some cute and funny Blue Macaws, to steal the scene from Paul Walker. No such luck. Instead, we get an appearance by a long forgotten character from the original The Fast and the Furious, Vince played by Matt Schulze. He has a welcome for Dom, Brian, and Mia, it's a job, a high speed car theft from a moving train.

This is maybe 15 minutes into Fast Five and just about the time where logical headaches begin to set in among those in the audience incapable of shutting off the rational parts of their brain. Now, to complain about Fast Five flouting the laws of physics would be about as foolish as the film itself. If you don't know how blindingly, ridiculously, over the top Fast Five is going in then you shouldn't even be watching it.

The premise sets the stage for a heist so elaborate and bizarre that that you can't help but marvel at the minds who concocted something so silly and yet so incredibly exciting and entertaining. The heist plot reunites portions of each of the casts of the previous Fast and Furious movies including Tyrese and Chris ‘Ludicris' Bridges from 2 Fast 2 Furious, Sung Kang from Tokyo Drift, and Tego Calderon, Don Omar and Gal Gadot from Fast & Furious.

It's a sizable but terrifically fun cast who bring a sense of playfulness to the ridiculousness around them. Tyrese's comic relief whining and Gadot's sexy flirtation with Han are superb ways of distracting the audience from the downright violent stupidity of Fast Five. It's so stupid but completely irresistible. The Fast Saga is like eating way too much of your favorite food, you feel guilty for enjoying it so much.

Also helping out in the distraction department is Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in his first Fast Sago appearance as Luke Hobbs, arguably the best character in the Fast series. Johnson is the super-cop hired to find Dom and Brian and bring them back to the U.S and Johnson plays him with the swagger and one liner tendency of an 80's action legend. When The Rock and Vin Diesel finally throw down in Fast Five it is just as violent and dimwitted as you could ever imagine and it's impossible not to love it. It's a terrible shame that Diesel and Johnson don't get along, Hobbs and Dom belong together.

That's the thing about the whole of Fast Five, despite how truly, truly moronic it is, from the mind meltingly laughable dialogue to the shredded laws of physics, it's hard not to enjoy it. Director Justin Lin and his technical team went to such astonishing lengths to create never before seen spectacular carnage that you can't help but admire the brainless spirit of it all.

It's a razors edge between too dumb and just dumb enough and Fast Five teeters on the brink from minute one to the very end, even into the the credits. Fast Five was the first in the Fast Saga to set up the next sequel with a mid-credits scene. It became a right of passage for franchises in the 2010's to have a mid-credits scene and this one, featuring another special guest from another Fast and Furious movie, minted the Fast Saga as one of the most reliable franchises in history, standing proudly next to any superhero movie or James Cameron blue alien nonsense.