Dumb, over the top and stretching every ounce of suspension of belief at times... but what did you expect from this franchise?

Rating: 7/10 (17 July 2011)

I will start with the overall statement to sum this film up within the franchise... Its the best of the five in my opinion.
I could easily go to town on the film and reel off a list of elements that would be considered negative for this film, such as clichéd dialogue and outlandish scenes that ask you to suspend belief in reality to avoid finding more holes than a sieve.
But why should i have to? This is what i would call a 'dumb summer blockbuster', a little slice of escapism and within a genre (action) that doesn't need to play it safe or play it to total reality. The dialogue will have you either grinning at the cheese of it all or putting your head in your hands at times, but if these meat headed characters had said it any more eloquently you wouldn't buy into the persona of who they are portraying.
Dwayne Johnson's character of Hobbs is the stand out one, having all the best quotable lines and playing the super cop who is by the book to the bitter end as well as any you might have seen before. He is the rival to the untouchable anti hero character of Dom that Vin Deisel has growled for every film up to this point. You are meant to not hate Hobbs but at the same time i found an unintentional element of him having the funnier lines and being so over the top was that i was rooting for him over Dom and the gang at times!
Now what i think must be noted is that when the franchise began it was simply a 'fast cars' film, very 2 dimensional but functional in its delivery. And while it didn't need 5 films in its run to have made it to the 5th film there was no way they could have flogged the same idea over and over and hope for the best. I applaud the thought process with the script to try and change settings and plot details, even though some of the films didn't work, and by raising the stakes in the jeopardy for the characters makes more sense as they seemingly try to top the last storyline.
They have unfortunately by having this mini renaissance within the franchise not taken it as a good last hurrah to their story,going out on a high, and now think the franchise has new life to churn out another with the characters that dragged this film up from mediocre to fun entertainment. Had they stopped there they might have got away with it. While i cant predict the outcome of the 6th film, i do fear they will over emphasise the unintentionally successful parts of fast five and ruin both films in the process.
But for now at least, an enjoyable 7/10