I saw this film today at the theatre in Ontario. Unfortunately, I was unable to watch it in IMAX. How would that affect the result? Not at all. The enhanced audio and wider screen would have been nice, but for example, the main action scene near the end of the film was shot at night and the wider screen would not have made much of a difference. The cinematography as always was terrific. In particular, the overhead shots, apparently from a helicopter, a Fast & Furious staple, are a very nice effect. Also, I really enjoyed the shots of the driver’s pedals braking, shifting, etc., which was shown several times throughout the movie. Now about the film. It stars Vin Diesel as Dom, Dwayne the Rock Johnson as Luke Hobbs, Paul Walker as Brian O’Conner, Michelle Rodriguez as Letty. It also stars the beautiful Jordana Brewster, who returns as Paul Walker’s wife. Hobbs was trying to capture the year’s big villain and enlists the help of Dom and the rest of the team. He entices him by showing Dom a recent photo of Letty who was supposed to have passed away. They agree to mutually assist one another. This leads of course to the action. There were two standout action scenes in this movie. The first one was a fight scene shared between about five guys against one and two women. This fight scene sort of reminded me of the action scenes in the movie “The Matrix“, with the camera switching between, several different action scenes, then switching back, picking up right where the action left off, I thought that was cool. The film’s climax involves several vehicles and a huge military aircraft that was attempting to take-off on what is apparently the world’s longest runway. This film along with the last one “Fast Five“, has breathed new life into this franchise. It is no longer just about street racing, although after the credits rolled, we were treated with a small featurette in Tokyo, and starring Jason Statham. I am a little worried this is going to turn into a “Tokyo Drift” part two. In all, this film was very enjoyable even with the suspension of disbelief that was required. I forgot to mention, one such suspension occurred when Dom was shot in the shoulder, not two scenes later, he was no longer shot and functioned normally, including full fight scenes with some bad dudes.
****
