The journey through all The Fast and the Furious movies continued with 2 Fast 2 Furious, and I'm baffled that they kept the franchise going after this. Although, at this point in the franchise, it's not fair to judge, because there are no actual actors in the film.
I've got a list below, but overall, what I'm taking away from this one is really the accomplishment that it was - the greatest collection of terrible acting on one screen. Seriously. Eva Mendes does one thing really, really well - and that's being very attractive. In this one, she's even phoning that in. Never seen her be less hot. (Still extremely attractive, don't get me wrong - but she's been much, much better.)
Tyrese? Come on, now. I forget that this movie was before the Transformers films decided not to give him any lines.
Really the only saving grace for the acting in this one is - and it's really surprising to say - is Paul Walker. He's the only one where I believe he's actually who he's playing to be. Everyone else must of been given the direction try really, really, really hard - and overdo everything.
More from the movie:
1) In the DVD Netflix sent me, the preview film was Timecop 2: The Berlin Decision starring the immortal(?) Jason Scott Lee. So my expectations were already riding high.
2. Suki. So, this girl had to be one of the executive producer's daughter, right? All of the plot holes in this film notwithstanding, could she have been the most ridiculous part of this story? An all-girl street racing team, in a pink convertible? I need to retire all the question marks for this paragraph, but how this got past editing, or past the first day of filming even - somebody had naked pics of somebody for this to make it to the final cut. Or, nobody cared (much more likely).
3. The FBI guy is back! And this time, he's not a jerk? Not really sure why he's such a Brian fan. After all, Brian let Dom walk in the first film, letting the Fed's criminal get away. Now? After a year on the run, FBI guy not only loves Brian and wants to bring him back into the fold, but he's got a good attitude about it. I'm not sure this bodes well for the continuity of the franchise, and that's noted going forward.
4. More attempted murder is just cast aside. In the first film it was Tran shooting up and blowing up Brian's car. In this film, it's Ludacris' crew plowing Dodge Rams into police cars. An already ridiculous premise - why didn't the cops just start opening fire - what blows it over the top was that after Luda and Suki get picked up by the police, they're still radioing Brian. My guess is that, even in Miami, if you organize large trucks into smashing into standing police officers, they don't just let you sit on a park bench and call your buds on your push-to-talk.
5. More Suki. In the entirety of the scene, it is ridiculous. But on its own - this is legendary. If you've seen the movie, you know what's coming.
6. The tag team street race. Remember? This is how they got the two other cars. Brian and Rome had given the el guapos a quarter mile lead. No way they could of caught up. My thoughts on this were that either the logistics team either greatly miscalculated just how far a car could come from behind another - or just that there was no logistical team.
Can't decide if I want more Suki or not. Tokyo Drift is next.
