Set Things Straight
So far Fast Five, a steroid male-attitude robot fantasy about muscles and possessions and whale-sized physiques and high-octane flamboyance and studly one-upsmanship, has an 81% Rotten Tomatoes rating. It is what it is (blah, blah, blah) and I’m not suggesting that Universal executives or director Justin Lin be indicted for a felony, but I’m going to rip it a new asshole tomorrow morning anyway.
Along with the smart critics who know better but have given it a pass because they know that the regular-guy mob is into it and they don’t want to seem too fickle or prissy or metrosexual if they don’t take off their shirt and jump into the passenger seat and shout “hell, yeah…a good time!” In other words I, Jeffrey Wells, am man enough to pan this thing.
“It is what it is (blah, blah, blah) and I’m not suggesting that Universal executives or director Justin Lin be indicted for a felony, but I’m going to rip it a new asshole tomorrow morning anyway.”
This is why we love you.
Paraphrasing Ebert “It is easy to write a review of a movie you loved or hated. It is the middle of the ground reviews that are hard to write”
I think of that because this is going to be the Summer of Jeff’s discontent.
Of the popcorn…no sorry, Eloi flicks I know I will land up seeing, is the anything other than MAYBE Super8 that us “Constant Readers” think Jeff won’t Savage?
81% from the third, fourth and in some cases 37th tier. Wait `till Friday.
I think Jeff just said he was man enough to pan the movie like a metrosexual.
I’m not criticizing or anything, I’m just sayin’…
Your opinion of a film, and your willingness, nay eagerness to give it, does not make you a man, nor those who have given FF a pass less of a man. It’s just a review of a summer movie; let’s not attach some greater personal meaning or character assessment to it. Just review the movie, not the reviewers. That said, I’m looking forward to you ripping into it because, as with most critics, negative reviews often bring out their best.
Wonder what El Machismo will say about Thor, now that it’s taken over for The King’s Speech as the dominant ad.
http://www.theonion.com/video/today-now-interviews-the-5yearold-screenwriter-of,20188/
Fucking awful, like the rest of the goddamn series, and being in a theater full of mouth-breathing trogs GASPING every time some useless supporting character from one of the sequels got their hero-shot/music-swell reveal or for the “shocking” post-credits reveal made me appreciate what it must be like for Wells sitting through one of the Marvel movies.
In fact, that’s pretty much what this is: “The Avengers,” but for douchebags.
WAAAAAAAAAAH I’M MOVIEBOB AND I’M LAME.
Gee, sorry there weren’t enough HUMBLE WEAKLINGS GETTING SUPERPOWERS FROM YOUR LITTLE FUNNY BOOKS for you to be properly entertained.
DIESEL POWER.
Also, hey MOVIE BOB?
Why did you go to see it then? Instead of YOU WASTING A SEAT SEEING SOMETHING YOU WERE GOING TO DESPISE, you could’ve sent me the invite.
MY NOT SEEING FAST FIVE YET IS A GRAVER INJUSTICE THAN ANYTHING MANDELA EVER SUFFERED.
Actually, there are – that’s part of what’s so fucking stupid about this series: Remember how the first one was just this shitty B-movie about regular street-racing goons getting in over their heads with some kind of highway-piracy BS? Not anymore. Ever since the second one, literally EVERY character who spends a few seconds behind the wheel suddenly turns into the goddamn Six Million Dollar Man.
There’s a whole section of this where these guys who’re supposed to just be three L.A. area gearheads are out-running, out-fighting and out-shooting a military hit-squad (apparently the FBI has a crack wetworks team EXCLUSIVELY deployed to hunt down renegade drag-race douchebags) amid a foot-chase through the favelas with ZERO explanation for how they can suddenly pull all this shit beyond “Well, clearly in THIS universe being able to manually shift gears in an import turns you into WOLVERINE.”
@Lex,
For work. Otherwise I probably wouldn’t have bothered.
the credit roll sequence got the best audience response of any of the scenes in the movie and that is kind of a prick tease
It’s called AWESOMENESS.
LOOK INTO IT.
“I, Jeffrey Wells, am man enough to pan this thing.”
Written while you were wearing your yellow shoes?
Just wondering….
The highest rated Fast and the Furious movie (aside from the latest) at Rotten Tomatoes is the original with 52%. The sequels are all in the 30% range or lower. So certainly, there is no sense of obligation among critics to like these movies or be judged. The consensus really seems to be that this is the most enjoyable of the bunch. Not saying you’re wrong to hate it, Jeff, but they’re not wrong to like it, either. Different strokes and all that.
When they write the book on Wells (which, no offense, they probably won’t), there will be a seismic shift known as POST-TSN, referring to his sea change following the Oscar loss of The Social Network, a hope on which JW seemed to pin absolutely EVERYTHING THAT MEANS SOMETHING TO HIM upon. In much the way pop critics refer to “the post 9/11 world,” in Wellsylvania the SOCIAL NETWORK LOSS seemed to be some confrontation with mortality that has shifted a lot of Jeff’s fundamental priorities.
In these past few months, he’s gone on some veritable (if amusing) WAR ON FUN, constantly taking stars and talent to task over paycheck gigs, raging about superhero movies with an energized disdain, ruminating on his legacy… Sure, that stuff’s always been there, but the SOCIAL NETWORK LOSS seemed to represent some fundamental last gasp of his beloved 70s Warren Beatty forward-thinking Smart Hollywood progressivism, and when it failed to win it sent him into Paul Kersey avenger mode, looking to preserve the good name of the Movie Godz even if he has to pummel every comic book movie, racecar flick, chick in a bikini, meathead actor, stoner comedy and fat guy like fucking Harry Brown let loose with an Uzi.
Fast Five has about fifteen different stunts that you watch and think, if that really happened, that person would not only be dead, they would be dismembered, there would be body parts everywhere, and the funeral home would offer some sort of mass closed casket discount. After the fifth one, I could no longer reconcile myself with the universe of this film. This is the 2011 Bad Boys 2 winner of Most Deaths Of Innocents By Protagonists.
I really wanted to love this. I really did. Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel was clearly in love with each other. The women were gorgeous. The car stunts were pretty good. The Asian guy even gets the girl! But on a Summer Blockbuster scale, there is never Smart, but there is Smarter Than Average, Average, Slightly Dim, Fucking Dumb, Completely Retarded, and then Fast Five.
“The Asian guy even gets the girl!”
I’m never in favor of this, unless it’s an Asian girl.
wha about Harry Brown with a Mac 11? …. FF had no firm sense of its large scale set pieces …. during the highway sequence in the third act I was wondering why Michael Bay didn’t direct this
Bah, some of you guys are as much fun as a cold sore.
All bitching about it, but you sure went to see it. Oh, yeah, you saw it for “work.”
I’m the single best writer on any movie blog EVER, I’m a shitload more talented than MOVIEBOB or GABE BORO. Where was my invite? Where’s my PAID WRITING GIG?
How you motherfuckers get PAID to do something you can’t fucking do?
I mean really… how could this thing not be a giant shit bomb? The first one sucked for christ’s sake. Paul Walker is literally the worst actor I’ve ever seen and I have seen a lot of bad actors–lexgs youtube channel for example
Paul Walker is GOD and you will BOW to him.
I would very much like to make a documentary about Lex G and it will be called: “I’m the single best writer on any movie blog EVER”.
“King of Kong” for movie bloggers…
Let’s hear how Mr. Hu rent apartment shanghai told. “Zhang Wuji said:” That being the case, your name, please.rent house in shanghai “That guy said:” I am three Jianming insignificant, then please say Huashan disciples to send fresh in the head. “Here, crumbling body, is unable to cope, suddenly in the lips moving, gushing blood of a big mouth. Zhang Wuji a cold,shanghai apartment for rent I thought Hu Shan Jian Pai Xian Yutong is a large enemy,
what’s with all the racial shit coming out of lex lately? did he see a pic of k-stew hanging out with a brother and now he’s on some talk radio-inspired campaign against all non-whites? yeah. k-stew. a brother. nine inches of black snake splitting her wide open. did i ruin your day?
also, FF is for dumbfucks who idolize fred durst and scott stapp.
Angela, I am coming to your Shanghai fucpartment right now, and you better get your ass ready for some mid-90s Kar-Wai action
“What’s with all the racial shit coming out of lex lately?”
Lately? Where’ve you been for the last two years? And, no, I don’t think Lex is a racist, but Jesus, he really needs to move. He lives in the Valley, which was 100 percent white back in John Carpenter days, but became ground zero for a Latin and Asian influx sometime in the early 90s. Lex didn’t get the memo. He needs to move to Los Feliz or Santa Monica or whereever the fuck they shot Greenberg, but he seems to be one of those guys who won’t even take the initiative to solve an obvious problem he has. Just my observation.
Even Buddy Repperton would have moved out of the Valley by now.
“Even Buddy Repperton would have moved out of the Valley by now.”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
AWESOME. Between that and the guy upthread who said he’s seen a lot of bad actors– “lex’s youtube channel for example”– that’s two genuine laughs in one night here.
Good work.
But, yeah, I’m not racist. I just don’t see any white people in my day to day life and was in interracial relationships for most of the 90s and part of the 00s… and I have emerged wanting one thing: A WHITE WOMAN. They do not exist in the Valley.
Shit, at this point when I see a blonde chick on the sidewalk, like once a decade, I’m so hyped up and horned up I feel like a lifer at San Quentin and they just like Kirsten Dunst take a stroll through the courtyard.
LA NEEDS MORE WHITE WOMEN.
there was a screening last night of the new foster/gibson movie… so, now the entire community has seen more ‘beaver’ in one night than lex has in…well…ever…
CRICKETS.
DOUCHE CHILLS.
Scooterzz tanks.
Also what “community” is scooterzz part of?
Other than the gay community.
Looks like Justin Lin will next be making a Terminator movie with Arnie.
Hollywood forget ancient Chinese proverb: Only Jim Cameron make good Terminator movie.
Figures you would enjoy Terminator 3 and Salvation Lex.
No, T3 is BLASPHEMY, completely undoes ALL of Cameron’s thematics from the previous two movies for the sake of cynical cyclical bullshit and BAD COMEDY… I only give it a minor pass because Stahl, Danes and Loken are terrific, and it’s a watchable enough B.
I do kind of like T4 though because WORTHINGTON IS MY IDOL and THE COOLEST GUY EVER.
WORTHINGTON POWER. LOOOOOOOK AT HIM.
Oops, never mind that.
But, yeah, Justin Lin is a bad fit for Terminator, because he’s so boisterous and poppy and colorful and giddy and unapologetically slick…. Seems a 180 from the militantly wan and COLD vibe required for a Terminator movie.
Which at this point isn’t even running on fumes, it’s running on dust… NO MORE TERMINATOR, please.
So I guess I kind of concur with markj; But Loken was the best thing ever. I bet Kristanna Loken would REALLY LIKE ME.
That was kinda the joke, LYT
Jeff, we’ve seen your car. You’re not man enough to pan this.
I mean, if you guys don’t want to watch this man-tacluar, get your handkerchiefs and bon-bons ready, because The Beaver comes out next week.
THE LEXMAN personally getting this throwaway “Eh I’ll tell you about it tomorrow” thread up to nearly 50 posts in the dead of night.
WHO’S THE BEST COP WHO’S THE BEST COP JIMMY? WHO’S THE BEST COIP? I’M THE BEST COP I’M THE BEST COP!
HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE ALL-STAR AND MVP
LEXG
Critics have lost all relevancy for me.
They collectively panned ‘Water for Elephants’ with a 55 on RT, but look at the audience rating: 93.
Count me in the 93.
Looks like Justin Lin will next be making a Terminator movie with Arnie.
Hollywood forget ancient Chinese proverb: Only Jim Cameron make good Terminator movie.
Figures you would enjoy Terminator 3 and Salvation Lex.
You guys are wrong, the 4th terminator film was at least better than the awful terminator 3.
Post #25 makes more sense than Fast Five. And Paul Walker makes Keanu Reeves look like Sir Lawrence Olivier.
How the hell did that post duplicate 20 minutes later?
Here, from the UK, is reviewer Anthony Quinn’s take on FAST FIVE for the INDEPENDENT:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/fast-and-furious-5-12a-2271000.html
81% rotten tomatoes is bad enough. I don’t have any idea about Fast Five, but with that rating I won’t bother to get any idea about it any more.
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