Gratuitous and routine, but highly enjoyable in places

Rating: 4/10 (24 April 2011)

I'll start by saying i was never a big fan of the fast and the furious movies, but this is definitely the one i liked the most.
The story starts off with Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and former cop Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) living as fugitives following the events of the last movie. They retreat to Rio de Janeiro upon hearing about a "job". Soon they find themselves fixated on stealing money from a corrupt Brazillian businessman, and making a fresh start. The FBI has also hired Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) a highly revered DSS agent to track down Toretto and 0'Conner and arrest them both.
The film basically becomes a run-of-the-mill heist film that pulls many tricks that countless other heist have done before or better.
The pacing of the film is very uneven, the action scenes are fast-paced with quick edits. But when someone isn't driving/running/shooting at something the movie doesn't just slow down - it grinds to a complete halt. This is likely because the dialogue is flat and the way the actors deliver is lacks any real emotion, going through every cliché in the heist film handbook.
Paul walker is his usual bland self, I consider him the king of underacting. Vin Diesel is okay, but his delivery is slurred and not always legible and he looks physically tired throughout most of the film. Every other member of the cast is forgettable, Tyrese Gibson, Ludicrous, Sung Kang etc. All the women are underdeveloped sex-objects that all look the same. I can imagine the casting call: 'Call every "other guy" from the last 4 movies and see who says "yes"'. It surprises me to say that Dwayne Johnson was the best actor in this, he seems to actually be trying with his performance and he has a few genuinely badass scenes.
The driving scenes in the movie (as far as I could tell) appeared to mostly use practical effects rather than throw a load of CG cars around - I hugely admire this decision and it looks damn good. The climax of this movie is genuinely awesome, the whole part where they're dragging a safe through Rio (as implausible as it may be) is brilliantly shot and edited.
Bottom line is this - If you like the last 4 films, you will enjoy this one. If you hated the last films there is absolutely no reason for you to see this because if you do you will hate it even more than those films.
I would recommend people to get this movie on DVD as a rental, that way you can skip all the arduous dialogue scenes and go straight to the action.