Unexpected, and enjoyable.

Rating: 10/10 (8 May 2011)

I have seen all of the Fast and Furious movies, and I personally felt that after the first movie, the film series degraded.
In 2009, we saw Fast and Furious, which sparked a new direction in the series. Where the first three movies (The Fast and The Furious, 2 Fast 2 Furious, Tokyo Drift) focused heavily on scenes centered around the main characters engaging in some sort of street race or pursuit, Fast and Furious, delivered what seemed to be a 'plot maker' in the sense that it tied a couple of the films together. It focused more on characters, origins,with a well balanced medium of action, racing, as well as character relations and development. I feel that this was a good initiative in freshening up the film series that (again, personally) I felt to be dangling above the sharks.
***Spoilers Ahead***
Fast Five, a sequel to Fast and Furious, proved again that this decision was positively for the better. Even with the current IMDb rating, I wasn't expecting much out of this film, I'll be honest. However, to my surprise this was a very good installment in the series. The action scenes were great, and the casting made them even better. Dwayne Johnson was a great addition to the cast, and seeing all of the main characters from the other 4 films in the series reuniting and having relations was a very nice touch.
I enjoyed the plot more-so than I did in any other Fast and Furious movie. This time around, it felt like they were taking matters into their own hands, rather than just running from some higher power (Chinese Gang in 1, Colombian Drug Lord in 2, Japanese Mafia in 3, etc). It had some unexpected twists, that I didn't see coming until it was abruptly obvious, which was nice.
The vault heist (featured in the trailer) was very entertaining to watch. The destruction was very over the top.. I'm pretty sure they committed a bank vault massacre taking out that bank and all.. but that's beside the point.
The only part I found a little TOO far-fetched, was that the bank vault weighed ten times as much as the cars and they managed to fling it around like a rubber ball on a string.
Other than that, solid movie. My parents hadn't seen the other titles and they enjoyed it too.
Very entertaining, and if you're a fan at all of the other films you will find this to be a surprising take on the film series.