In Which We Make A Better Special Agent Than You Ever Did

Dome Versus Dome

by LAUREN BANS

Fast Five
dir. Justin Lin
130 minutes

Fast and the Furious movies are like animal videos on the Internet, and not only because Paul Walker's face looks like an LOLcat. A few years ago a clip of a single puppy licking its paws was enough to trigger a dopamine rush, but after 100 million hours of sweet-faced animals on YouTube the brain requires more stimulation to incite the same kick.

Now it takes something more ambitious, some novel clafoutis of cute, like a Golden Retriever puppy spooning a handicapped cheetah at a kindergarten choir concert to suffice.

"don't use bing!"It's the same logic behind what dudes who never get laid call the "strange pussy theory," as well as the growing spectacle of the Fast and the Furious franchise. Whereas a couple drag races did the trick in the first installment, Fast Five opens with cars soaring off a moving train, a bunch of roid-raging beefcakes in fisticuffs, a gas tank explosion, and Paul Walker and Vin Diesel doing Olympic 10 dives off a bridge. This is all within the first 15 minutes.

The original cast escapes to Rio de Janeiro for this one, where the plan is to lay low for awhile. But that’s not much of a movie so Vin says, "One more job, and then we're done forever" which is as believable as when I say "One more cookie, and then I'm putting them away for the night." The hit is on Reyes, a corrupt business man who controls the favelas and forces his lady workers to wear bikinis all day while they bind his money, unlike Vin Diesel’s lady workers who just wear bikinis all day of their own volition.

First the fast, furious crew invades one of Reyes' warehouses and burns the money to show their mission is not just about bank, there's some larger, albeit vague moral battle they're waging, despite the fact they cause countless Rio cops to drive into walls and stuff. Then they go after the money. Unfortunately the movie went for a PG-13 rating so there is no real sex to behold, but there is a wrestling match between Vin and The Rock so intimate it is impossible to discern where one bald dome ends and the other begins.

There are some cars in this movie. They don't morph into Autobots, but they do everything else and eye blow you in the process, enough to make you question your donation to Coalition for Alternative Transportation. Director Justin Lin smartly plays Vin Diesel's acting inability for laughs rather than accolades. And there are a few choice slow-mo moments - one where beads of sweat soar from Vin Diesel's cheek as it accepts a punch, the other when The Rock’s inhumanely massive face menaces some wee bad guys with a constipated glare - that are basically just animated gifs made before the Internet could do it.

Combine that with a script in which 90 percent of the lines uttered could be movie poster taglines, along with non-stop metal acrobatics, explosions, and gun play. There's not much to take away from the experience. But there’s nothing to dislike about it either.

Lauren Bans is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Brooklyn. You can find an archive of her work on This Recording here. You can find her website here, and she twitters here. She last wrote in these pages about waxing.

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