Here are some "Fast and Furious" movies

I recently had the opportunity to watch both of the epic "Fast and Furious" movies! I figure the best way to review those movies will be to just go ahead and do a comparison of the two, so that I don't end up wasting time on a movie that's altogether unreviewable anyway.

At it's core, both "The Fast and the Furious" and "2 Fast 2 Furious" are two hour souped up car commercials, mixed with a little stuntwork, t and a, people who look like they were stripped from a modelling school, and raspy gangsta music. I don't think it can be broken down any further than that, since you can't break down something that's already broken down.

While the first movie had some kind of acting chemistry between Paul Walker and Vin Diesel, I felt absolutely no chemistry between Paul Walker and Tyrese in the second movie. The first movie, although cliche, felt somewhat fresh and light on it's feet and sometimes walked the line between being just your average run of the mill car race movie and striving for something more, "2 Fast" shed any such pretensions and was just a 2 hour video game. While the first movie was cliche, the second one was just a 2 hour version of Playstation 2 video game, "Vice City," minus the beatings and rapings of prostitutes. It's almost as if the producers and directors of "2 Fast" said, let's make a movie as cliche as humanly possible complete with the ruthless and wealthy latino drug dealer, the requisite DEA Agent who looks like a model for Maxim, latino heavies who do the bosses dirty work, and Miami club scenes. I almost expected Don Johnson to burst onto the screen and start bustin some heads.

Which reminds me...When oh when is John Singleton going to return to the land of the creative artist? "Boys N the Hood" is one of the best and most important films of the nineties. "Poetic Justice" and "Higher Learning" were certainly not the best movies of all time, but damnit, they certainly made you think. I fear that John Singleton may be lost forever and will never be able to make another compelling movie ever again. Certainly not if "2 Fast 2 Furious" is any indication. Even though the script and actors that he was handed were not the best, you have to think that a very skilled artist would be able to make a lot more out of what he was given than John Singleton did. Yikes.

But let's cut through the shit shall we? This movie isn't about plot or acting. This movie is cotton candy for the brain. It's fun and entertaining to watch, but it's not going to put meat on your bones. It's not going to increase your thinking capacity anyway. I don't think of myself as a film snob who only sees movies that star Meryl Streep and or Al Pacino in them. I know a good time when I see it, and on that level, both movies deliver for the most part. Essentially, what these movies are equivalent to is your basic Kung Fu movie. For the Jackie Chan deprived, it's set up, fight, character introduction, fight, plot intro., fight, conflict, bigger fight, conclusion, biggest fight of them all. That's all these movies are. It's as if the directors of both movies said, here are some good looking people, now let's see how fast we can get into their souped up Honda Civics.

The car scenes were pretty spectacular in both movies. I saw the first movie on the small screen on Sunday night and then saw "2 Fast" on the silver screen on Wed. night. It was really impressive to hear the sounds of the cars and the music on a big screen complete with THX sound accompanyment. Seeing all of the cars and their awesome paint jobs, complete with Nitrous Oxide injection systems, almost made me want to take my Geo Prism into the nearest Asian owned car mechanic for some "tight ass rims." haha

Another thing that is really glaring about both movies is how much they play into the racial and gender stereotypes. Women in these movies are nothing more than eye candy for the mostly male audiences that see these movies. They really serve no purpose for the audience other than the purpose that rests between the legs of the mostly male audience. They're dressed in as little as humanly possible and say as little as possible, which again feeds into the empty minds of the mainly male audience. It's really degrading, but I guess if nothing else, it shows that there is a long way to go in this country in terms of increasing our level of gender equality. In terms of race, every racial stereotype is here in this movie. This movie contains everyone from the crew cutted skivvy shirt wearing latino, to the do rag wearin, corn dog rolled hair african american, to the blonde haired blue eyed, frosted tipped momma's boy from Arizona, to the wise crackin, ebonics talkin asian american. You name it, you got it. Probably the only constant is that they all speak ebonics in some way or another.

Was I entertained? Yes. Did it leave me with anything substantial? Absolutely not. It is what it is I suppose and nothing more. Ahh the joys of summer.

matt out