Chris Morgan

‘Fast & Furious’ With Vin Diesel, Paul Walker is Loud, Boring, Useless Drivel

BrianTT — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:58:08 -0600

Rating: 1.0/5.0

CHICAGO – It took eight years to reunite the cast of the original “The Fast and the Furious” - Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, and Michelle Rodriguez. What’s changed in that time? The franchise lost two articles and gained an ampersand. Maybe the next film will simply be called “F F”. I can think of one word that starts with ‘F’ that certainly applies to the latest film - failure.

With dialogue that wouldn’t pass an eighth-grade English class, two lethargic lead performances by a pair of actors who might as well be wearing signs that say “for the paycheck,” and only two real racing sequences, “Fast & Furious” is likely to let down even the most forgiving and hardcore fans of one of the more successful franchises of the ’00s.

(L to R) Paul Walker and Vin Diesel reteam as agent Brian OConner and fugitive ex-con Dom Toretto for the ultimate chapter of the franchise built on speed.
Photo credit: Jaimie Trueblood and Universal

“Fast & Furious” opens with an exceedingly goofy and illogical sequence in which Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his girl Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) attempt to hijack gas tankers while speeding down a hill. Why they don’t just hijack them when the driver is taking a leak at a rest stop isn’t clear. Prepare to not just suspend your disbelief but destroy it if you want to make it through “Fast & Furious”.

After a tanker goes boom in a CGI effect that looks awkward now and will look ridiculous in just a few years, Dom’s gang decides that things have gotten a bit too dangerous and they need to split up for a while or risk attracting the attention of the feds. Dom and Letty split until he receives a phone call from his sister Mia (Jordana Brewster) that she’s been murdered and he’s forced back to the States to avenge her death.

At the same time, Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) has become a tough, on-the-edge FBI agent. Perhaps no one has sold “tough and on-the-edge” less convincingly than Paul Walker. Brian’s investigating a drug-trafficking ring led by a mysterious crime lord and it turns out that his case and Lety’s death are linked. When Brian and Dom realize they’re trying to bring down the same guy, they’re forced to work together again.

From there, “Fast & Furious” accelerates quickly into utter nonsense. Why did the team behind this franchise think we’d want to watch Dom and Brian infiltrate a boring drug ring? All fans really want to see is racing, sexy girls, and maybe a little witty banter, but “Fast & Furious” doesn’t even provide a lot of that.

Daredevil Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and fugitive ex-con Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) prepare for the fuel heist.
Photo credit: Jaimie Trueblood and Universal

This far into the movie, fans get their first real racing scene. Get this - to pick drivers to transport drugs across the border, the crime ring stages elaborate drag races through crowded streets. Yeah, because the best way to plan your illegal operation is to draw attention to yourself.

To be fair, the sequence where Dom and Brian race to get into the gang is easily the best in the film. It’s the only time that director Justin Lin comes alive, bouncing cars off each other and screeching around corners with frenetic glee. If there was more over-the-top driving, “Fast & Furious” might work as escapism. But this sequence and one other late in the film are the only true racing moments in a film that features more talking about driving than actual pedal to the metal.

With another half-asleep performance by Diesel, a disappointing turn by Walker even by his scale, nearly cameo roles by Brewster and Rodriguez, a boring villain, and hardly any action at all, it’s hard to understand what the team behind “Fast & Furious” were thinking. I know. It’s just an action movie and I shouldn’t be so critical, but it has hardly any action and the rest barely qualifies as a movie.

‘Fast & Furious’ stars Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, and Michelle Rodriguez. It was written by Chris Morgan and directed by Justin Lin. It opens on April 3rd, 2009. It is rated PG-13.

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

‘Wanted’ With Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy Concocts Curving Bullet in Gluttonously Entertaining Blockbuster

HollywoodChicago.com — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:01:00 -0600

Rating: 4.5/5.0

CHICAGO – With curving, clinking and kissing bullets, “Wanted” indeed does Chicago proud. And Angelina Jolie sells it. And Morgan Freeman is ominous. And in his body of work, James McAvoy – the star of this orgasmic summer blockbuster – becomes a man.

Fox (Angelina Jolie) shoots from the driver’s side of her Dodge Viper in the action-thriller that tells the tale of one apathetic nobody’s transformation into an unparalleled enforcer of justice in “Wanted”.
Photo credit: Universal Pictures

Many Chicagoans have been keenly aware of the film’s local filming throughout downtown Chicago and Broadview, Ill.

Angelina Jolie as Fox in “Wanted”.
Photo credit: Jaap Buitendijk

After also focusing its filming lens throughout the Czech Republic and Hungary, Chicago’s prominence reigns surprisingly dominant and central to the film’s assassin-based plot of one “apathetic nobody’s transformation into an unparalleled enforcer of justice”.

James McAvoy is the man of the hour, and in a short 110 minutes, is handed a Hollywood renovation from an initially fear-laden, listless boy to a surgically precise killer who’d give Matt Damon’s character (Jason Bourne) in “The Bourne Ultimatum” a fight for his life.

“Wanted” features Chicago front and center not only in its aesthetics but also central to its high-adrenaline pacing and action sequences. The Universal Pictures film needed exactly this big-city, fast-action feel to haunt McAvoy with the necessary vibrations in his quest to decide who he really is.

While “Wanted” is chock full of innovation – especially in its fight sequences and “The Matrix”-inspired special effects on ludicrously entertaining Hollywood steroids – the film at times still falls victim to the traditional stereotypes of what you’d expect in an assassin action-thriller with an ever-increasing death count.

“Wanted,” which was pushed back to a June 27, 2008 release date from an initial March 28, 2008 plan, won’t accrue the high marks and huge numbers it deserves because of its story alone. This is an outright action fest of sensory enchantment, carnal killing and orgasmic delight.

James McAvoy as Wesley in the action-thriller that tells the tale of one apathetic nobody’s transformation into an unparalleled enforcer of justice in “Wanted”.
Photo credit: Jaap Buitendijk

While ultimately not blown away by the power of its story as a whole – yes, it can be said “Wanted” is just another assassin film with big names, fancy sequencing and the PR machine in full gear – James McAvoy’s character is an important one many people can relate to. As well, it actually conveys a valuable message.

On the flip side, the “Loom of Fate” is a god-awful plotline decision. A loom in a textile factory that spells out who you should kill and assassins blindly follow the decades-old machine to the bloody death of someone they’ve never met and know nothing about? Cut. Edit. Rewrite. Something else. Just not that.

But like McAvoy as Wesley Gibson, are you also in a dead-end, 9-to-5 desk job that you either just tolerate or actually despise because you have bills to pay even though your passion might be something else entirely that can’t pay your living?

A handcrafted bullet makes its way to an unfortunate target in the action-thriller that tells the tale of one apathetic nobody’s transformation into an unparalleled enforcer of justice in “Wanted”.
Photo credit: Universal Pictures

Not all of us have the bravado to utter the sure-to-get-fired “death mouth” to the boss. Certainly in the real world we don’t then transform into a crushing assassin and find our calling in offing people. But this is just a metaphor to inspire you to find and live your own calling.

While the plot’s somewhat tired – yeah, yeah: no one can trust anyone, everyone’s out to get someone and one man must learn to rise above them all – first-time U.S. film director Timur Bekmambetov sells the journey as one that’s genuinely inspirational.

The “Wanted” we’re seeing now, though, came from an entirely different origin: comic books.

Not only was the entire “supervillains take over the world” storyline dropped in this “Wanted” but originally in the comic book the story takes place in an alternate present day. Bekmambetov’s “Wanted” strays so significantly from its comic origins that you can hardly tell where it came from.

The premise was for these supervillains to “band together … and use their vast collective powers – including mad science, magic and mind control – to eliminate all the world’s superheroes and rewrite reality in their own dark image.”

Instead – and along with delivering a delicious and indisputably entertaining film – screenwriters Michael Brandt, Derek Haas and Chris Morgan manage to dig down deep and pose one of the more thought-provoking questions a blockbuster has taunted audiences with in some time:

“What have you done with your life lately?”

RELATED IMAGE GALLERY
View our huge, high-resolution “Wanted” image gallery.

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Listen to our episode-two podcast on “Wanted” and more.

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Read more news on “Wanted”.
More film reviews from critic Adam Fendelman.

It’s a critically important question. On one hand, intended “Wanted” moviegoers have already committed to purchasing their ticket because Hollywood allows us to peer into the darkest depths of our most primal instincts and unshackle the chastity belts of our most sensual fantasies.

But on the other – a side you wouldn’t foresee in a film with the mission to dish out a decidedly raucous ass kickin’ – McAvoy’s pursuit to buck the normalcy of his paper-pushing life and his verbally abusive cubicle boss in favor of something that makes him feel alive shouldn’t inspire us to unleash our literal killer within.

In the subtle subtext of this entertainment behemoth, we are urged to find our own path that transforms our life into one that’s worth living. We are to choose one where waking up and falling asleep every day isn’t all for nothing. Rather than just floating by, it’s time to wake up and be alive.

“Wanted,” which opened everywhere on June 27, 2008, stars James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Terence Stamp, Common and David O’Hara.

By ADAM FENDELMAN
Editor-in-Chief
HollywoodChicago.com
adam@hollywoodchicago.com