Thighs Wide Shut

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
Built To Fast
Official Site | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 137 min

8 Fast 8 Furious was a disaster.  Sure, it was fast, and yeah, it was furious, but it ended up being 1 fast and 1 furious way too many for my tastes.  Bringing Dwayne Johnson into the fold changed the dynamic of the franchise for the worse (but perhaps for box office best).  Fast & Furious is no longer about hot cars, hot chicks, and the meatheads who drive and ride both.  It’s now about solving global terrorism… with cars?  WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY FAST & FURIOUSSESS!!!!

So what to do?  Apparently the right thing – Dwayne Johnson doesn’t need the world of Fast & Furious, and we don’t need him there either.  So use the F&F letterhead and team him up with his rival and let the hi & lowjinks ensue.

Welcome to Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw!

It’s got the F&F attitude, but none of the Vin Diesel battitude!  And it turns bad guy Jason Statham into a good guy!  And he gets to make fun of The Rock the entire time!  And he has a sister – Vanessa Kirby – who roxxxx!!

And the movie is very self-reflexive!  It knows how dumb it is and plays that up!  Cliché upon cliché is clichéd, and it works!

But this movie is 137 minutes too long.  Yes, the whole thing is unnecessary.  After some big fight between our three heroes and the bad guy (Idris Elba), I was like – that’s a good place to end.  I’ve seen enuff.  I’ve enjoyed this dumb aplenty.  We don’t need to continue on, and have more scenes of talking and strategizing and plotting, just to set up another big fight.  But it went on, and it turned into Whale Rider or something, and then we’re introduced to a character related to one of our characters, and then I got really upset

Spoiler alert…

I got upset cause we’re introduced to The Rock’s screen mom, who lives in Samoa, a place the Rock’s character hasn’t been back to in 9ever cause of some pointless beef he has with his brother.  And in a movie where nothing is believable, I actually had a problem in believing this was in-character for the Rock’s character.  The Rock’s character is a big family man.  They always make it a huge point about how he loves his daughter and stresses the importance of family.  So if that is the case, why would he never see his mama?  And hold back his daughter from meeting and getting to know her grammy?  This makes no sense.  It makes no sense especially since the beef the Rock’s character had with his brother is squashed in all of about 8 seconds.  All that estrangement for nothing.  The Rock’s character made his mother sad for ages, and withheld gladness from his daughter as well.  That’s too slow, too curious

Next time, less family, more feud.  And pile on even more clichés!

Verdictgo: dumb, but fun, so I guess… Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Hobbs throbs at a theater near jews and white nationalists 

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

6 Fast 6 Furious
Resurrection Intersection Erection
Official Website | Trailers & Mo 
PG-13 | 130 min

Dude, name me a movie franchise (BESIDES THE JAMES BONDies) that’s still going pedal to the medal in its 6th round.  NAME ONE????  (OK, maybe Star Trek, but Star Trek had so many duds, and they changed the cast multiple times over).  You can’t name one (OK, maybe the original set of Planet of The Apes movies, which are ALL SO GOOD, even the bad ones), and that’s why The Fast & The Furious series may (end up) be(ing) America’s greatest (dumb fun) movie franchise ever (besides the Jackass and Step Up franchisesezes).  You may laugh at that notion, but not even Star Wars could make fun happen 6 times.  Now I’m not saying that all (or any) of the Fast & Furious movies is are masterpieces (two of em are basically worthless – #3 & #4), but for what they are – they are amazing.  They are pieces of (metal) crap, but the F&F movies know this and feed on it, pushing the ridiculousnessness to new extremes each & every time, while actually trying to keep a straight face when doing so.  The result?   Endless laughter and excitement and awesomeness.  You can keep your Whedon Avengers, cause I’ll stick with Justin Lin‘s 6 Fast 6 Furious.  I’ll take a tank exploding out of a truck(!!!) AND a car exploding out of a giant plane (!!!!!) over Superheros ho-hum/humdrummingly destroying CGI buildings (for the nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn^th time).  + I’ll take all the crummy dialog that goes along with it

So what’s Fast 6 Furious 6 about?  Do you even care?  It’s like 5, but MORE and BETTER, and even more DUMB and FUN.  But this one’s got Michelle Rodriguez BACK FROM THE DEAD!  HOWWW????  WHO CARES, SHE’S BACK AND SO FAST, AND SO FURIOUS!!!  And they got a good baddie (Luke Evans), and another lady who can kick, and has an ass (Gina Carano), and a super huge Danish dude (Kim Kold) who needs to play The Rock‘s friend or nemesis in every movie he’s in going forward.  But 6ast 6urious isn’t perfect.  They coulda trimmed off about 30 minutes from this thing (like what was with that scene where The Rock and Ludacris make some guy give them the clothes off of his back and his watch and stuff??), and The Rock has a little-lot bit TOO much testosterone for a movie that isn’t short of terone des testos, and that Asian guy is so boring and lame, and undeserving of touching or even looking at Gal Gadot, who doesn’t have nearly enuff nekkid shower scenes (total count – zero), but this is all minor quibble squabbles, which aint nothings to squabble quibbles about when THERE ARE VEHICLES EXPLODING OUT OF OTHER VEHICLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In its 6th iteration, the Fast/Furious franchise seems to be hitting its stride.  HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE!??!?  And after the giant TEASE [spoiler, don’t click] they be showing no signs of SLOWING down for #7.  CANNOT WAIT!!!!  In all honesty, I hope they continue to make these movies for the next 100 years.  If I make it to 90 years of age, I’ll force my grandchildren to take me to see 22 Fast 22 Furious, but only if they drive slowly

Also, Tyrese Gibson is the secret weapon of this whole franchise.  Without Tyrese Gibson, you have nothing.  Tyrese Gibson is life.  Tyrese Gibson needs his own vehicle vehicle movie franchise –  Tyrese Tyfurious.  If there is a god, he will make that happen

oh, and THIS!

Verdictgo: this is a 92728 star movie, but we don’t do stars so it’s BEYOND BREAST IN SHOW!!!

6 Fast 6 Furious rules the streets and theaters near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Fast Five
New Model, Same Make That Makes Our Day
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 130 min

Justin Lin‘s Five Fast Five Furious (what the film should really be called) is the best Fast/Furious film since #2.  Is that really saying much?  No, but like Prom, it’s eggzactly what it needs to be – fast cars and the lunkheads who drive them, hot woman surrounding them, and dialog so basic that it couldn’t even be written in Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.  There was one scene in particular that took the cake, made us cackle for a full minute, and summaries the film and series as a whole:  Newbie/hottie Elsa Pataky has a case file in her hand and says ‘this doesn’t make any sense‘.  Her (also Fast rookie) superior  Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson takes the file in hand, sez ‘here’s what makes sense‘ and tosses it aside with much anger.  It so ridiculous that it almost must be seen to believed, and while udderly laughable, it’s eggzactly the kind of scene a Fast/Furious movie needs.  It’s a perfect self-reflexive moment of juss how testosteroned and over-the-top the whole affair is, and anything less would be uncivilized

So what’s new?  NOTHING, cept for the location, and the change is for the better.  The action takes place in Rio and its favelas, and even though this may not be no City of God, it’s a city of good… dumb fun.  Not only are Vin Diesel, Paul Walker and Jordana Brewster back behind the wheel, but so are there friends from the other installments like Tyrese Gibson (no one delivers more predictable and pathetic one-liners that audiences eat-up more than he does!), Ludacris, Matt Schulze, Sung Kang, ultra fly Gal Gadot, Tego Calderon and Don Omar.  And what is this ‘dream team’ assembled to do?  Something like burn the dirty money of the Portuguese Phil Hartman (Joaquim de Almeida) or something, BUT WHO CARES WHEN THE CARS GO SO FAST AND THE WOMEN ARE SO HOT AND THERE ARE LIKE 3 TOTALLY WICKED RAD ACTION SEQUENCES, which are well worth the price of admission and admission that it’s OK to love refarted flicks like this.  RIDE ON!!!!

Fast Women: you already know about Israeli Gal Gadot (she’s like a taller, finer Natalie Portman!!)

but what about Spanish hottress Elsa Pataky?????

she’s far from tacky!!!!!!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

5 is alive and well at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…