Gran Turismo (2023)

The life of the young bedroom-dwelling videogame nerd living at home with their parents. Let's take some really good car racing gamers and put them into actual real racing cars to see if they can actually really drive them. Because this is exactly how you recruit young talent these days, by their videogaming prowess. Wait, this is actually a true story??!! Well, I'll be a plumber's brother!

Yes, so in case you never knew (and I'm sure you probably didn't), there actually was a real videogame programme organised by Sony and Nissan called GT Academy, where actual gamers had the chance to compete to gain the opportunity to become real race car drivers. Who knew! No literally, who knew?? This competition was based on the Sony game Gran Turismo 5 and featured thousands of gamers competing in time trials, culminating in a final race to reach the next stage. The next stage was an actual racing camp to train for a track race in real (Nissan 370Z) cars. Whoever won got an actual racing contract with Nissan, no seriously.

So at first I'm watching this thinking, this is corny as hell and I know exactly how this is gonna go. The main character, Jann Mardenborough, is a young misunderstood Black kid who plays Gran Turismo all day, which understandably upsets his dad. It looks like he is throwing his life away until entering and wins this GT competition. At this point, everything changes and his dad starts to take notice. So far, so corny. At the academy things take another predictable twist as we get a very cheesy, over-the-top, militaristic 'Top Gun' with cars scenario. Heck, you could even throw some 'Days of Thunder' into the mix. This entire first half is an almost entirely different movie from the second half, one big cliched training montage.

I think David Harbour's cliched hard-ass training coach character, Jack, says it best at the start when he essentially rips apart the entire premise of the movie. Gamers into actual racers? Videogames aren't reality. We the audience are thinking exactly what he is saying. Honesty there is so much cheese in all this its hard to take anything seriously. The moment when Jann is telling Jack and his team how their cars are running, where the problems are, and that he (a videogamer) knows more than them, really made me scoff frankly. Obviously, in this movie Jann is proved correct, but come on!

The second half of this movie actually turns into a whole dramatic biopic about Mardenborough and his actual racing career. It's so weird, we go from stupid cliched videogame competition nonsense, to a proper biopic that even incorporates a real crash that saw one spectator killed! Talk a tale of two halves. The second half is actually quite good for a racing flick. For the most part, Mardenborough doesn't really do that well, but he's always just about competing. Jack (a former racer himself) stands behind him all the way as he just about manages to hold his own. Things take quite an emotional turn with the crash, but Jack motivates him to get back on the horse, so to speak, and they enter Le Mans with two other racers from back in the academy. A full team of videogame racers, competing in Le Mans! Honesty, this is all true, apparently.

It's at this point where you'd obviously expect Mardenborough and his team to win Le Mans in a rousing and emotional fashion. Proving all the doubters wrong, winning the complete trust of Nissan and all their backers etc...But no! In line with reality, the gamer team finished third at Le Mans, which was still a solid performance. We then find out more about Mardenborough's career in the end credits. Funnily enough, with a bit of Googling you'll see that despite this rags to riches tale of sorts, and despite Mardenborough legitimately proving people wrong and doing really well for himself, is actual racing record isn't all that good. He hasn't won very much at all, competed a lot, but not been that successful.

A strange and quite unbelievable story, and a strange combination of genres in this movie. Going by the title, you'd think this was just a silly racing flick, ala 'The Fast and the Furious', with flashy cars, sexy girls, and young people saying 'bro' all the time. It does indeed kinda start that way, and things don't look too good. But then the movie has a change in gear and becomes something much better. Don't get me wrong, there's still lots of hammy car porn with meaningless internal engine sequences and closeups of disc brakes and pads etc...You know, to make things a bit more 'cool'. Obviously, most of it is pointless and adds nothing.

There are some visuals taken from the videogame, but for anyone who hasn't played it, then this is all pointless. Luckily you don't need to have played the game, I mean, it's a racing simulator, so everyone can get on board. Truth be told, the movie didn't really need to be called Gran Turismo, but I get why they did that. But yeah, overall this did surprise me. I expected another dire videogame adaptation, but we actually got a biopic, and quite a fun one. If you can look past the videogame aspect, and ignore the terrible casting (Ginger Spice?), this is pretty solid entertainment, well, the second half is anyway.

6/10

Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977)

 

The third sequel in the Herbie franchise and despite the two movies being made in the 1970's there is a definite change in visual appearance between the two. Unfortunately the classic cozy charm of the Walt era directed by Disney stalwart Robert Stevenson was out, and a newer slightly slicker late 70's vibe from new director Vincent McEveety was in.

This time we are back alongside Jim Douglas (Dean Jones) who is now in Europe with his (new?) racing partner Wheely Applegate (Don Knotts). It appears that this third sequel has taken a line from the last movie by Tennessee Steinmetz's aunt referring to Herbie's last owner going to Europe to race, so that's what we have here. The plot is extremely simple and goes back to Herbie's racing roots. Douglas is in Paris to qualify for the Trans-France Race but must contend with other Euro drivers mocking his ride, a female driver with a car Herbie falls in love with, and two bumbling robbers that have hidden a large jewel in Herbie's gas tank. 

So first up, where the hell did Wheely come from? This guy talks like he's been racing with Douglas for decades, but where was he in the last two movies? No mention by Douglas ever. Clearly this role should have gone to Buddy Hackett as Tennessee but obviously that didn't happen. So I get the impression they had to create a new character but it sticks out like a sore thumb. Nothing wrong with the character per se but if you look closely he doesn't actually do anything during the movie, no mechanical tinkering at all. I think Tennessee was a better mechanic.

The love triangle, Humans and automobiles. Oh boy! So we know in this universe various objects can be sentient (cars, jukeboxes, trams etc...), but in this movie we find out that these sentient objects can also fall in love. Case in point, Herbie falls in love with a rival racing car which, apparently, is female? This leads to some of the more stupid and obviously soppy sequences in this flick. Herbie driving around Paris with no driver. Herbie literally going nuts in front of this female car and no one except a lone waiter notices. Both cars driving around on or in city gardens. Herbie, once again driverless, has a dip under a fountain and no one bats an eye. Both cars somehow drive onboard and ride a public ferry?? How the flip?! This led me to ponder, are any of the other racing cars sentient? 

The diamond thieves. So whilst all that racing tomfoolery is going on, two blundering crooks have stolen a huge diamond from the local Parisian museum or wherever. Because they fudge it up, in a desperate attempt to escape the law they hide the rock in Herbie's gas tank (which only appears in this movie a few times for plot convenience). They now spend the entire movie trying and failing to retrieve it. This is essentially the Saturday morning cartoon segment of the movie. The clear-cut 'Pink Panther' rip-off for kids. The two incompetent ham-fisted criminals are well played by Roy Kinnear and Bernard Fox, one an impatient thug, the other a well-spoken cad, but I feel like they are kinda embarrassing themselves here. Obviously their hijinks are aimed at kids but holy skid marks is it cringeworthy at times. To make matters even worse are the two clodhopping French policemen who are tracking the jewel. Inspector Clouseau you say? Yeah pretty much.

One such moment of typical Herbie madness has our heroes driving along a narrow cliff edge (surely they'd not do this?) after a deliberate diversion by the villains. This leads to a minor rockslide on Herbie which miraculously doesn't damage the car at all, not a scratch. After some further shenanigans the villains are subdued by the water from Herbie's windscreen washer jets (eh?), they then get buried in another rockslide and are left abandoned on the narrow cliff edge! Yet they turn up out of the blue in the next scene just like a cartoon. I know it's for kids, I know, I know.

Apart from these various downsides and plot holes the movie generally is good fun and handles the race factor well. The location work is absolutely stunning it must be said. There was clearly a lot of location shooting and it really pays off. The opening overhead sequence is fantastic. The racing in and around the tight streets of Paris look authentic and are beautifully shot. There are some pre-race sequences around the Eiffel Tower that look terrific, pretty sure they're location shots but could be matte paintings. Overall this flick surpasses the original in terms of visuals, it all looks like a massive advertisement for holidays abroad but at the same time really captures the Euro race vibe especially with all the Euro cars.

You could say this is a rerun of the original, after all it's just another racing story with a few subplots on the side. Douglas wants to make a big splash comeback and needs to win this race to do so. In both the original and this sequel it's mostly about Douglas and Herbie proving themselves and standing up against the mockery. The original had a Dick Dastardly-esque character to challenge them, and here there is another German Dick Dastardly-esque character to challenge them (plus the robbers here and there). 

So essentially it's the same again but in a different location, but it still works very well. The second movie went away from racing and was fine, but seeing Herbie back on the track is definitely better. The shift from racing across America to racing across Europe is a bit of a generic move but it gets away with it (another would have been too much). It's a shame the movie has lost that unique old-Walt American as apple pie charm but this is still a winning entry.

7/10

Herbie Rides Again (1974)

 

The inevitable sequel to the highly successful 1968 Disney original (now a classic) 'The Love Bug' which revolved around an apparent sentient 1963 Volkswagen Beetle.

The story follows on from the original movie with Herbie now residing with a little old lady in the same old 1892 firehouse in San Francisco. Said little old lady, Mrs Steinmetz (Helen Hayes), is the aunt of Tennessee Steinmetz (Buddy Hackett) in the original movie. Tennessee is said to be back in Tibet with his teacher, whilst we are told that Jim Douglas (Dean Jones) has since moved to Europe to continue racing; presumably the idea that led to the third movie. 

In this cute adventure Mrs Steinmetz's firehouse comes under threat from construction/demolition tycoon Alonzo B. Hawk (Keenan Wynn) who wants to build a huge skyscraper on the very land where Mrs Steinmetz's old firehouse still sits. Failing to get the land Hawk sends his kind-hearted nephew Willoughby (Ken Berry) to try and get Steinmetz out. Unfortunately for Hawk, over time, Willoughby sees things from Mrs Steinmetz's point of view and also starts to fall in love with local neighbour Nicole (Stefanie Powers). All together, along with Herbie, they must defend the firehouse from the potential pending doom of Hawk's bulldozers.

I think the main thing to hit you with this sequel is the fact that it's taken a much more kiddie-friendly approach in terms of hijinks. Of course the original movie was very silly in places, but this movie goes one step further and really gets a bit goofy. Straight away I'm now unsure about this particular 'universe' as it were because now there are lots of sentient vehicles (and other things) everywhere. San Francisco is full of sentient Volkswagen Beetles apparently, and they can communicate with each other. We also discover there are sentient trams and jukeboxes too! I guess these various sentient beings hide themselves away from the majority as no one seems to know about them other than the odd lucky (excentric) person.

As said the goofiness is turned up a notch this time. Herbie is seen chasing birds on the beach like a child (I guess Herbie is supposed to have the mind of a child?). He is seen surfing in the Pacific whilst also getting tailed by a shark (sharks eat cars?). Herbie can fit in external lifts for window cleaners, he can also fit along the ledges of tall buildings. Herbie is able to drive through a swanky restaurant causing no hassle at all. In a dream sequence we see dancing Herbie's in Native American attire (indeed). We also see multiple Herbie's with gaping monster maws leaping over fences (instead of sheep). We see tiny flying Herbie's attacking a giant Hawk atop the Empire State Building in a homage to 'King Kong' (pretty cool little idea). And finally, in probably one of the stupidest sequences, Herbie drives up the metal cables of the Golden Gate Bridge (with Hawk's lawyer goons in tow on foot!), and then reverses back down the same way! Obviously I think we can all agree these metal cables probably aren't the right width to allow this (mental note, silly kids flick).

Along with these moments of utter madness we unfortunately also see some pretty ropey special effects. Now don't get me wrong, back in the day these were probably pretty sweet looking. Heck I remember loving these Herbie flicks as a kid and loved the effects. So I'm sure kids these days won't mind (Marvel movie CGI aside). But yeah the effects have dated badly in places, as is to be expected. Of course there is a tonne of bluescreen and rear projection which is obvious. Although repeat rear projection shots inside Herbie with characters driving are all part and parcel of the movie and the charm. On the other hand there are some nice little moments like the model work inside a warehouse. There are also those glorious technicolour-looking matte paintings that many old live-action Disney movies had (probably the same artist). These shots always look good and kinda cozy at the same time. The shots (both exterior and interior) of the old firehouse are lovely.

Alas it has to be said that Herbie feels more like a side character in his own movie this time. Yes of course there's plenty of Herbie action but he's still relegated to the background somewhat as Keenan Wynn stole the show as Alonzo Hawk. This guy is like a live-action version of Yosemite Sam and just as enjoyable. At the same time the love story between Willoughby and Nicole, plus the subplot of Mrs Steinmetz meeting a random old drunk guy who resembles her dead husband, kinda puts Herbie in the background really. 

Have no fear as the grand finale is a full frontal attack of Herbie's with Volkswagens aplenty showing up to fight back against Hawk's demolition team. Definitely a cute sequence for sure seeing all these multicoloured Beetles, including a junkyard Beetle that feels more like an undead Herbie, night of the living Herbie. The whole thing is of course all rather stupid because the Beetles don't actually do anything. Hawk fears the Beetles (a phobia almost) and runs off but he didn't need to get off his bulldozer because he was 100% safe. At the same time all Hawk's men drive off when they see the Beetles, why? They're all in huge construction vehicles, what are a few VW Beetles gonna do?

In the end Hawk gets arrested because he's a nasty grumpy villain, oh and the police think he's a wack job. Nicole and Willoughby get married and Mrs Steinmetz and the old drunk guy presumably live happily ever after in the old firehouse with the sentient tram and jukebox. Although, what happens when Hawk gets back from the cop shop? Has he reformed? Will he continue his quest for the land the old firehouse sits on? We shall never know. That being said this movie came along after Walt Disney's death in 1966 but despite that you can still feel his creative input from the original and those snug agreeable classic Disney vibes. This will easily please kids (presumably) and it still pleased me after all these years. Clearly not as good as the original (that had a more exciting plot and cast) but it's still a solid and worthy sequel, just about.

6.5/10

Baby Driver (2017)

Stupid name for a heist movie, unless that movie is a kids comedy all about a bloke having to drive babies around during a heist. Or maybe an adult who drives like a baby or some shit like that. Why hasn't anyone made a comedy about learner drivers yet? You could call it 'Learner Driver', hey that's not a bad idea (copyrighted).

So this is a heist movie. In this movie a mysterious kingpin (?) called Doc (Kevin Spacey) uses various people to pull off various daring jobs, but he always uses the same driver. This driver is a young man called Baby or Miles (Ansel Elgort). Apparently Doc caught Baby breaking into his car many years prior and was so impressed with his skills that he decided to use him for his heists. Naturally Baby had to comply or face the obvious consequences. Now for a long time every heist has gone well for Doc, but clearly that doesn't last and that's the main crux here.

So straight away there are various questions here. Firstly, who is Doc exactly? What is this guys deal? Where does he come from? How is he so powerful? What does he do? Nothing is explained about this character and its kinda frustrating because he simply doesn't come across like a bad guy (especially with Spacey's performance). The fact he also makes such glaring mistakes with his decisions also raises questions about how he's managed to gain so much power. Doc uses Baby as a getaway driver despite the fact he's literally only a teenager, or at least in his early 20's. Yeah OK Baby is a good driver, but is that still a good decision? To use such a young person as your heist getaway driver?? I can think of many problems that might arise with that.

Doc also claims to never use the same people for each heist, but he does! He also uses Baby for every heist so what is he talking about. Then at one point when the gang suspects Baby of being an informant, and the fact he's being telling his foster father all about their deeds; Doc and co still allow him to carry on being their getaway driver! These are what you call eye rolling movie decisions.

Now lets look at Baby, why is he called Baby? Dunno. This young man has tinnitus from an accident as a child (which killed his parents). Since then he's been raised by a black man who is deaf. Is it me or does that sound both unnecessarily pc and kinda counter productive? Would a deaf (apparently single?) man be the right choice to raise a child with tinnitus? I honesty don't know, it just seems like an odd decision, but hey what do I know. So Baby is a good driver, again we don't know how this is, it just is. He's a good driver don't question it. Baby is also very much into his music, mainly because of the tinnitus. He listens to music virtually all the time and uses it to help him concentrate, even on heist jobs. The weird part is he often records people (without consent) and uses snippets of their speech to make mix tapes. Its a very odd part of his character and really doesn't make any sense, or it didn't to me.

So things all go wrong for Doc when he uses a team consisting of a couple of crooks who are in love, Buddy and Darling (Jon Hamm and Eiza González), and the violent Bats (Jamie Foxx). Of course the highly predictable outcomes are all a result of the highly predictable out of control character Bats. Because a trigger-happy, tattooed, ghetto lunatic is what you need in your specialised heist team, what could go wrong? The other two don't really do much other than smooch, although Buddy does stick up for Baby at times leading you to think he's a good guy. All the while Doc is supposed to be intimidating...but really isn't.

What follows is a bog standard turn of events that see the plot holes get bigger and bigger. At one point after discovering one of Baby's mix tapes Bats and Buddy decide to go back to his place to get the rest of his stash, and question his foster father. Bats proceeds to knock Baby out...but how did they then manage to find Baby's place?? When the heist goes wrong and the police react, I don't believe any of the cops actually saw Baby involved in any way. Yet Baby runs off, and continues running even when in the clear, which would obviously cause the police to follow out of suspicion (as they would in reality, if you run you've got something to hide). Baby continues to escape by then carjacking and driving like a lunatic...which again will always make you stick out like a sore thumb. Why do characters in movies never get this?? You wanna blend into a crowd of people or traffic, act or drive normally, don't run or drive like a nut.

Anywho the movie is formulaic right down to the last moment where Buddy keeps popping up despite Baby shooting him point blank (in the shoulder?? How did he fuck that up??). The only thing that got me was the fact Baby didn't go down in a blaze of glory, or escape fully. But then we get this dreadful soppy ending which is even worse so...I find myself baffled by the reaction to this movie, once again I just don't get it. It didn't offer anything much in terms of originality, except for the main protagonist having hearing issues; and everything action wise was terribly average. I think the thing that disappointed me the most was the trailer giving me the impression that Baby drove a Subaru Impreza for the whole movie, which he didn't.

5/10

The Fate of the Furious (aka F8, 2017)

Wow so here we are huh, the eight movie in the franchise, this thing just keeps on goin' doesn't it. Obviously by now the entire population of this little blue planet knows how this shitshow works, its not to be taken seriously...at all. Yet despite that clear cut fact I cannot help but tear the opening sequence of this movie apart, and here we go.

It begins in Havana, Cuba where Toretto and Letty are having their honeymoon. Conveniently Toretto's cousin is also in Cuba and is having some debt issues with some local petrolhead. Luckily this all takes place at an auto show (randomly in the middle of the city) which is filled with hot women that are basically half naked (won't someone think of the children?). The perfect scenario for Toretto to show his stuff...aww yeah. So Toretto challenges this young guy with a super modified car to a race to get his cousin outta trouble. Unfortunately Toretto only has his cousins broken down wreck of a car to use. No worries, Dom fixes it up within five minutes (mainly using 'Cuban NOS'? Any different to regular NOS?) and its ready to roll.

What follows is essentially the backbone of the franchise, how it all started, a gritty illegal street race. They throw this in at the start just to remind you of the franchises roots before it goes all xXx and Mission: Impossible on you. Yeah so they have this illegal street race through Havana. All the traffic is stopped merely by two motorbike riders who follow the race and block junctions. Miraculously there are no accidents with other traffic users and absolutely no police presence anywhere. The two cars tear up the city streets with Toretto eventually winning the race in a shit heap that is actually on fire. But no worries because xXx manages to dive out of the car (at top speed) just before it hits a concrete barrier, flies into the air, explodes and lands in the sea. Naturally good old Dom sustains no injuries whatsoever.

As said, this is what we're dealing with now with this franchise, complete disregard for anything actually based within the realms of reality (although this isn't the first time, but its gotten way worse). It also makes it very hard to review such a movie because we all know this. We all know its not supposed to be a serious movie, we all know its throwaway popcorn trash that exists purely to provide Bay-esque visuals. So of course on that front the movie succeeds in every aspect, it does exactly what it says on the tin. The flip side is how far can this be pushed before it just becomes f*cking ridiculous. The answer to that is of course about four movies ago.

Essentially this movie is now practically a superhero flick. All the characters are pretty much invincible and I doubt any will ever be killed off. Hell, if Paul Walker hadn't actually died in real life then I'm sure his character would still be alive and well with the others. But this is a major problem with the franchise (alongside so many other problems). You just don't care about the characters because you know they're invincible. There's no way any of the main protagonists will die, no flippin' way. Even when one does get killed in this movie they end up coming back. All this does is equal zero tension, zero thrills and zero risk. Fuck me even the villain is too big to get killed off it seems, future sequels are gonna have impossibly large casts.

And what is the antagonists goal here exactly? The big bad villain (female of course, Charlize Theron) wants to start off a world war I believe it was, why? And in order to do this she needed Toretto's help to get some vital bits and pieces in order to activate a nuclear sub and start a nuclear war. She couldn't do this herself with her henchmen? And in order to keep Toretto under control she kidnaps one of his ex-girlfriends who is pregnant with his child that he knows nothing about. Convenience much??!! I guess you could say she's lucky Toretto is even bothered about this considering its his ex.

There is so much stupidity and deus ex machina in this movie its painful, so very painful. The way characters (Toretto) seem to just have secret rendezvous or help outta nowhere, like magic, only to be explained towards the end of the movie. Yeah because that's really clever. There are numerous car chase sequences that are essentially fights with various vehicles, its like watching Transformers. Each vehicle also seems to represent its driver so Dwayne Johnson naturally drives a huge, hulking 4x4 jeep thing that probably has really shitty fuel economy and moves like a bus. Its also apparent that in these sequences the hero vehicles don't sustain damage...until its clearly unavoidable (because product placement). The same is often seen with weapons, in other words Dwayne Johnson is always seen with a huge shoulder cannon type thing (what's he compensating for?).

Then of course you have the finale where they all take on a nuclear submarine and we see a sequence which is pretty much straight outta the school of escaping 'Prometheus' style. Toretto survives a massive blast from a heat-seeking missile striking the sub (as do all their vehicles apparently). Roman is even more of an unfunny idiot but unfortunately doesn't get killed here. Other characters from previous movies such as Tej and Frank Petty merely make up the numbers and continuity. Scott Eastwood is in here for no particular reason, I genuinely don't know why he's there. Statham does the same shit as before and some others pop up blah blah blah, who cares. Oh and Toretto names his son (from the ex) Brian after Walker's character, even though in the movie Brian isn't dead sooo...why?

One of the main problems with this movie (and some others) is the fact that you kinda have to know the previous movies to get everything. Bottom line this is not a good stand alone movie, its not a good movie but even more so because you gotta know the backstories to a degree. Other than that its not much different from the Transformers franchise for me, just glossy garbage that ticks all the correct boxes. The epitome of modern movies.

3/10

Furious 7 (2015)

Yeah alright Toretto we get it! family, family, family, sheesh! How is this still going? seriously how?? they're even starting to run out of movie title ideas for Lord's sake. Number seven, following on from the previous movie in some kind of large Marvel inspired universe (groan!). The movie continuity is all over the place, characters have been popping in and out of each flick, they've added new bigger stars and now finally we have our new look fast car heist flick. I simply  call it 'The Expendables: In Fast Cars', or a better one would simply be...'G.I. Joe: In Fast Cars', you getting my drift?

Yeah so the plot involves Toretto having to retrieve some hi-tech gizmo from some nasty mercs for the (US) fuzz, in order to get the lowdown on Jason Statham's character (Shaw) who is trying to kill Toretto's family because of the events of the last movie...deep breath! Some how this is all gonna involve using souped-up cars, as if you hadn't already guessed. Just a warning, as if you didn't already know, these souped-up cars will come and go, they will appear out of nowhere in virtually every scene. Toretto and co might smash up some lovely highly modified cars in one scene, but sure enough, he'll have a brand new one ready for the next scene, outta nowhere, we've all come to expect it.
But wait! this time its not just Toretto's family that have a constant stream of souped-up cars on hand, oh no. The villain (Shaw) has even more expensive cars on hand for every scene, we're talking super car shit here boy...the expensive kind. This guy doesn't think twice about ramming his massively expensive Maserati Ghibli head-on into Toretto's Plymouth Road Runner, a collision that both parties walked away fine from I might add. Also amusing to note that Statham is playing an undercover ex-special forces guy who is basically a ghost...a ghost that drives around in amazing super cars that will draw lots of attention.

How can I put this, this film ain't too subtle about anything it does, but again, we all knew this. In previous movies the action has been wild and the stunts outrageous, but there was always a certain degree of realism. The stunts would generally be real, the action would generally be acceptable and overall everything was grounded enough that you could engage and immerse yourself in this world of fast car hi-jink. Unfortunately this all ends here, this movie has stepped over that line into the ridiculous and there is no going back, this movie is officially a dumb CGI cartoon.

Don't get me wrong, it all starts off OK with a good strip racing scene where a crappy Audi gets taken down, seriously these German wannabes make me laugh. You want an image, you need a fast car, you want a fast car, you need either a ricer or at least American muscle (Italian as a last resort). After that we get a great fight between Statham and Dwayne Johnson, it all looks good, everything so far is fine in movieland. Eventually we get to the funeral sequence for Han (from the best movie in the Franchise, number 3), this is where things start to go down hill. Right in the middle of this funeral, Toretto has some kind of Jedi super sense moment and notices Statham's Maserati (quite some distance away), before you can say holy coilovers! he's in his Plymouth and we're in a car chase.

This is but a mere quibble compared to the rest of this monstrosity...oh yes. This movie goes above and beyond any kind of remote levels of realism you might have ever expected. They parachute cars out of a plane managing to land them precisely on target, on a road, in the middle of a mountainous region, bang on time. All these cars get wrecked during this eastern European adventure, but fear not, they have a whole new set of cars for their Arabian adventure, including a flippin' Veyron!

Statham is easily the best thing about this poor movie but alas he's not involved too much. Nevertheless his character does manage to pop up virtually everywhere, briefly, somehow, but always fails to kill his targets. In the Arabian adventure section he has Toretto and Brian in a car, in his sights, point blank range with a machine gun fitted with a grenade launcher. Yet he fails to hit them, much of the car, the tyres and even fails to hit them with the grenade launcher, special forces you say? Dwayne Johnson is absent for most of the movie until the finale where he rips off his broken arm cast and tools up in his hospital room. Because...you always keep multiple weapons, body armour, ammo and assault clothes in your recuperation room in hospital. He then manages to drive an ambulance off a walled bridge, to precisely land on top of a speeding jet propelled drone that was passing underneath it...seriously.

Speaking of that drone, how much fucking damage and destruction was caused during that chase sequence?! How many people were injured or killed, admittedly its not quite as bad as the previous antics involving a tank and a massive vault, and this time its not been carried out by the good guys, but still. How long would it take for fighters or police choppers to scramble and intercept this rogue chopper firing guns and rockets in downtown LA? We have car jousting between another of Shaw's super cars, an Aston Martin DB9, (he just has them on tap apparently) and Toretto's Dodge Charger...which comes out unharmed. Dwayne Johnson taking down an armoured chopper with a minigun from the crashed drone, in the middle of the street, managing not to get hit by return fire and a whole load of other bollocks that just made me cringe and yawn.

This entire exercise was completely pointless, there is nothing to engage you here, everyone is invincible, you know no ones gonna die (well not in the movie at least...did that tragic event help with the box office for this? hmmm), what's the chuffing point?! The bit at the end where Toretto is seemingly dead and everyone is crying was so utterly stupid I almost switched it off...for about the fifth time. Crowbar in the butch-ugly Ronda Rousey for an aimless fight (Rodriguez looking like mutton dressed as lamb), wasting Tony Jaa and then trying to make up for everything by utilising the cult Kurt Russell is little too late I'm afraid, Kurt is better than this.

The dialog is absolutely dreadful from everyone, such unbelievable, over the top, macho bullshit quips. The humour is also pitiful and predictable, how can anyone say any of this stuff and try to bring it across as serious is beyond my comprehension. But the main issue is this movie isn't just a goofy videogame-esque movie, you can see they have taken it seriously, it is suppose to be a semi-serious action flick. Look at the overall tone, the emotion, certain scenes of dialog, the action, the way cast members like Vin Diesel act, its all very serious, Vin Diesel takes this all very seriously, its his baby. Plus much of the fanbase will take this all seriously too, to many all this hip-hop, bling and swagger is the epitome of cool, they actually think its genuinely cool. The movie doesn't really help women in movies either I feel, surprised this hasn't got any backlash considering the recent attitude in modern society, just saying.

This franchise has always been a guilty pleasure for me, mainly for the Jap super saloons (ricers), as with other similar fast car flicks. There is nothing wrong with a popcorn action flick, just pure escapism and thrills, but you still need a reasonable level of realism you can relate to, you need the human laws of gravity and physics. If there is literately no limit to what the characters can do with or without cars (or whatever) then the whole affair becomes a pointless joke, a completely absurd pile of nonsense. This movie takes the biscuit, completely idiotic and brainless (and that's just the main characters), to say you need suspension of disbelief is an understatement.

4/10