A Beast in a Jungle

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Not so Fast, certainly not Furious

Hot woman, even hotter car, going nowhere.

Lured by an inexplicably favorable review by Mick LaSalle in the SF Chronicle, I went down to my local theater to see my first Fast and Furious movie. I should have known better, because fifteen years ago I did the same thing with the execrable Buffalo 66. Thanks to LaSalle'sunfathomable taste, I've now wasted a good four hours of my life and $20 I'll never get back that not even Michelle Rodriguez driving a Jensen Interceptor (my favorite car of all-time) can make up for. The movie isn't fun, fast, nor furious. It's just incredibly dumb, and not in the good way. Even the car sequences, which should be the one thing they get right, fail to excite and are CGI enhanced. Then there's the talented Dwayne Johnson, buffed to alarming, Hulking proportions, so grotesquely huge he's at least as big as Schwarzenegger was in Stay Hungry. Watching him made me queasy and fearful for his prospect of living a reasonably long life. Let's not even discuss the dialogue, plotting, or logic behind the action sequences as they are all ridiculous and poorly executed. Seriously- skip this clunker.