ryanskywalker-87402 The longer a franchise goes on, the more likely it seems to fall into one of two patterns. Lucky series continue to build on the strengths of their predecessors, adding to the good and removing the bad for an increasingly good experience. Unlucky series find something that works early on and stagnate, refusing to innovate for fear of losing their magic. Somehow, with Fast and Furious, the FF series straddles both of these patterns at the same time. Series' mainstay Brian O'Conner is back and is now a federal agent working to break up a cartel run smuggling ring in Los Angeles. However, when the same cartel kills Dominic Toretto's girlfriend Letty, Dom returns to his home turf and two reluctantly team-up to take down the bad guys.If that plot sounds familiar, there is a good reason, it is literally the plot of the first two movies sewn together. From the first you have Brian working undercover alongside Dom, the LA setting and the street races. From the second you have the bitter rivals forced to team up to bust up a drug operation. Despite the fact the the story takes zero steps forward narratively, the whole thing actually works. This is mostly because the series is starting to mature. Sure, the camera still clings to the rear-ends of half- naked women with a pubescent glee, but the dialogue is far superior to anything in the series so far, there is real character growth and the dramatic moments work more often then they don't. If you need an example, just take the scene in which Dom describes Letty to an interested cartel enforcer named Gisele, the scene is almost heart- breaking and is miles above anything found in the first three films.To match the stronger writing, the cast bring a better game as well. Paul Walker really hits his stride here, trading in his poor faux machismo for a more reserved, thinking attitude, giving room for Vin Diesel to handle the tough guy stuff. Both actors work great together and manage to sell the improved dialogue well. The action scenes still aren't amazing, but returning director Justin Lin steps his game up from Tokyo Drift and keeps things entertaining throughout, though the CGI has already started to age a few years out. The soundtrack is even a little better, still filled with loud and angry rap and rock, but better, less obnoxious song choices then entries past. The only thing not improved in the slightest is the villain, who is just another one-dimensional drug kingpin, seemingly the archenemies of good, honest street racers the world over. Fast and Furious may have lost the "the"s from the title, but is has gained some quality to its filmmaking and for the first time I can see why this series was able to become a tent-pole franchise. Here's hoping that as the next entry sheds more words from its title, it gains even more high caliber filmmaking.

Evan Wessman (CinematicInceptions) There is nothing terribly remarkable about this movie. Basically, it's the kind of movie that would get pumped out of a formula for how to make a lot of money with a movie. I like the "New model. Original parts" tagline, but this really isn't that true. The only "original parts" are Dom, Brian, Mia, and sort of Letty. Pretty much every aspect is standard in quality, but tries to seem like it's really good. It's as if the writers think that by giving their characters a code and a few emotional moments, it means that the characters are deep, and that the actors give good performances just because they portray multiple emotions. The same goes for the action scenes, which are packed with crashes and explosions but really aren't that exciting. They held my attention, but not for that long. Besides, nearly every one of them involved cars and the action scenes were not shot well enough for me to actually comprehend what was happening in them. This was disappointing, because the FAF movies are never that strong in story, but can be entertaining as long as they have good action. Story is typically what drives a movie, but a bad story can be partially saved by some impressive action as with movies like Kingsman, the second Hobbit movie, or Mission Impossible 3. All of the action was standard and monotonous. Cars chase each other, get beat up, and the bad guys cars crash sooner or later, leaving Brian and Dom unscathed. Not much more really happens. In the filmmakers defense, they had a tough level of action to deal with here. The scale was larger than street fights, but nothing as huge-scale as the subsequent movies.The one aspect of the story that I found interesting was Brian trying to repair his relationship with Dom and Mia. He tries so many times to prove to them that he really is their friend, which is a difficult thing to do given the ending of the first movie. It would have been better if this had required Brian to change himself. Otherwise, the story was just a bunch of events strung together. It wasn't dramatically satisfying or anything like that. I had really hoped that Letty's death would lend this movie a more character-based story, but unfortunately her death turned out to just be a plot point.So, needless to say, my opinion of this fourth installment is not high. I suppose it's fine if you decide to watch it. It's no great work of cinema and probably won't even be your favorite of the series, but it might be entertaining. I would just recommend that you not bother yourself with figuring out the plot, because you won't enjoy the movie any better if you understand it. On a final note, it is somewhat impressive that this sequel was a financial success because of how pivotal its success was to the overall success of the series. Had this installment crashed and burned, the series would not be at the huge-scale level that it is today. Overall Rating: 7/10.

CinemaCocoa It is back to the beginning, back to familiar faces and a surprisingly serious tone for the series. But we still get a stupid naming committee. Yeah, Fast and Furious isn't at all confusing when looking back at the series, is it the first, second, third film? Who knows! What's wrong calling it The Fast and the Furious 4?To make things more unnecessarily complicated, Fast and Furious is a prequel/sequel, taking place after the first film but before the third film (so it should technically be No.1.5) due to Sung Kang's character Han returning to the series. Whether it acknowledges the second film or not is ambiguous.When running from the law begins to get to him, Dominic (Vin Diesel) is looking for revenge after a drug dealer kills his partner Letty. At the same time, the FBI is looking for the same man, spearheading the operation is a reinstated Brian O'Conner. Naturally, the way they must infiltrate this heroin ring is through the dealer's love for performance car racing. I'm happy to see the return of the moodier tone; this feels like a direct sequel to the first film rather than a spin-off or a parody. A lot of the film is set at night with deep shadows. They even made Paul Walker's Brian O'Conner bearable! His character is rejected from the others since the first film and he starts out as more of an anti-hero lawman. I was quite surprised at the apparent restraint at glorifying the cars themselves; the camera seems to linger less over them as the film ploughes through its exposition and story. Of course that could just be me desensitized to it … I have watched four of these films now! It still has the usual trappings, don't worry.It is ultimately a solid story and a decent sequel to the first film, if you liked The Fast and the Furious you shouldn't have any problem with this. This does make the series more traditional (persistent narrative) which is a shame; the reason I enjoy Tokyo Drift so much was that it offered a new direction for the franchise, an anthology franchise about driving, following different characters each time. But that's not the way to make money, but as it stands, this is good too.

joshuadrake-91275 After The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, a sequel with Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster returning was put into production and would not be released until April of 2009.The story sees Dom and his new crew hijacking fuel tankers in the Dominican Republic, but he believes that the police is high on their trail. Meanwhile, Letty is killed in a car accident and this leads into Dominic and Brian coming together once again to find her killer and make him pay.I'm not gonna say this movie was bad, but I kinda hate and love this movie at the same time. What made the action work previously is the car chases and underground racing, but that is still present here, so I can't blame this movie for not having car chases.The over-the-top action is just lazy, except for the climactic car chase at the end of the film and the chase between Brian O'Conner and a criminal at the beginning of the film in Los Angeles. I saw previews of this movie online and on TV and I had mixed feelings when I watched this for the very first time.The music is just cool. I give Brian Tyler a lot of credit, but I don't want to talk about the entire musical score for the film.The acting is kind of a mixed bag of popcorn and gummy worms for me because some of the actors do their job and some of them does not.I give credit to the four main actors who play the four main characters even though Michelle Rodriguez does not have a lot of screen time, she does a very good job. The film saw the return of Sung Kang as Han Seoul-Oh and to tell you the truth, he does a great job. Gal Gadot plays Gisele Yashar and she is a new introduction to the film series, but unfortunately, she does not have a lot of screen time either, but does really good.The villains played by Laz Alonso and John Ortiz are okay, but Laz Alonso was miscast in this film. Nothing against him, but I like him in Stomp the Yard and Jumping the Broom, but this is the only film that I think he did not work. John Ortiz plays Braga in this film and he gives a good decent performance, but even then, it's incredibly over the top.So, overall, I have mixed feelings about Fast and Furious 4, while I like the music, story, action and some of the acting, I can't get over the fact that the Letty Ortiz character was killed off. I give it a 5 out of 10, because they tried their best and I don't think it's as bad as people say it is.Now, if the movie would have been 124 minutes long, it would have been fine.