New Model, Original Parts. Oh really? Well Michelle Rodriguez and Vin Diesel are the original returned parts but Fast and Furious feel more like and old model with a new paint job. (Universal)
By Janeane White
Fast and Furious (opening April 3 throughout San Diego) is the fourth movie in The Fast and the Furious saga. Dom (Vin Diesel) and his girlfriend Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) along with a few other guys steal some gas, and then Dom gets news of people wanting him dead or in prison so he decides to leave. He leaves Letty in the middle of the night with a bundle of cash and goes out to be on his own without endangering the ones he loves. Soon after leaving he gets news of Letty being murdered and sets out to seek revenge. The rest of the movie is Dom trying to find out who killed his love and kill them. Dom has to enter a race along with an old "friend" Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) who is now undercover for the FBI. They both end up getting hired by the guy that they are looking for; then revenge and duty takes their course. Brian gets the man he is looking for with the help of Dom and Dom gets his revenge.
When you think of theThe Fast and the Furious you think of fast cars and hot women. The saga is about illegal racing, drugs, and all sorts of other illegal activities. This movie just doesn't hold up to the rest of the series standards. Yes there are cars, drugs, and some racing but I feel that it just doesn't compare to the others. There is more action in the others and more extreme stunts in the others. In the other films you get more in-depth about the cars and its drivers. In this movie you see the cars but not so much about what goes into them. There are driving scenes but only really one race. When Dom and Brian get hired by the villain to transport drugs there are faster driving scenes but nothing really special. In the end when the bad guys go down there is another major chase scene which was actually pretty cool. But I was hoping there would be more scenes like it throughout the movie but there weren't.
Compared to the other movies in the saga I felt that Fast and Furious (rated PG-13 for for intense sequences of violence and action, some sexual content, language and drug references) just didn't come close to the previous movies and I feel that they could have done a better job. I also feel that instead of doing a movie that takes place between the original and its sequel they should have made the fourth a continuation from the third. I was really interested in what happened in the end of the Tokyo Drift and wanted to see what the new guy and Dom would have done. But I think this movie is somewhat pointless. Not only did they make a movie that isn't amazing but it just isn't needed. If they were going to spend millions of dollars on a movie then I think they should have spent it on continuing or finishing the story rather then to revisit events that had already happened.
-- Janeane White is a senior at Mount Miguel High School. She enjoys movies and spends all her time at the theater. She is also interested in special effects makeup done in the movies. She is an honors student and is currently working towards early graduation. Some of her favorite movies include Queen of the Damned, Hellboy, The Descent, the Underworld series, and the Saw series.