Fast and Furious 4 Review

As you see, this movie is in my list of movies to watch this year, so naturally I have expectations towards it. Planned to go watch this with my friends or something similar but since my mom got a hold of some free tickets (don't ask), of course I grabbed it. There's not many free things that I refuse. Who does?

Anyway, the movie was going to be in Mid Valley, on a Saturday (11/04/08). Coincidentally, I have class going on earlier that morning. So no choice, I had to attend it. The class ended about 30 minutes earlier and thanks to a friend of mine, I got sent to the nearest Komuter station without having to take a taxi. He saved me RM10. Thanks dude. The movie was a 4pm but I arrived in Mid Valley at about 11.30am. There are a lot of things I can do here of course to kill time. Had my lunch at McD's having the McValue Lunch of Double Cheeseburger. Walked around the mall, stopped by computer shops, stopped by MPH, before my mom called me to join the family for a meal before the movie. Guess what my mom got me? A McValue Lunch of Double Cheeseburger of course. My body must've been screaming like crazy if it could with the amount of fat and sugar I take in today. As you know, the movie is 18+ so my mom only got 2 tickets for this movie in which I had to watch it with my dad while the rest of the family get to watch Confessions of a Shopaholic. My movie starts at 4pm while the other one starts half an hour later. Got into the theatre and it was freezing cold. After the Transformers 2 movie trailer which was an eye candy and some booze commercials, the movie starts.

The movie starts and one of the company that works in this movie is Dreamworks, which specializes in digital special effects, which made me think, oh boy this isn't good. They're relying on some animated cars rather than the real ones. Unlike the earlier 3 movies to this series which starts with a race, this movie doesn't. This could be wrong or might be right. It's good to see Vin Diesel reprising his role as Dominic Toretto but Paul Walker hasn't yet to be seen. As in the trailer, it starts with stealing some oils and at the end of this scene was some obvious digital effects. Which was very cheesy and corny. Paul Walker appears later as the Brian O'Conner which is now working with the feds again. The movie mainly revolves around revenge that Dom was seeking to people who murdered her girl, Letty. And Brian was looking to bust the head honco of a drug smuggling gang. And coincidentally for both of the characters to reach their goals, they had to do some driving. Yeah nothing innovative but nothing wrong with that. Ok, now. What is it that made us so attracted to watch this movie franchise? Of course for the hot cars and racing action. Well, here's some spoiler for you, triple click in the white space to view it:
[Spoiler start]
there are only 2 races if I'm not mistaken throughout the whole movie and the rest of car scenes were just driving dangerously.
[End of spoiler]
There were only a handful of cars and even they don't appear much and even if they do only for a brief amount of time. This was not the Fast and Furious we have learned to like. Driving in this movie was just something that the characters had to do instead of what they like to do. Unlike in the first movie where there were drag races, races around the town in the second movie, races around a construction site in the third, all of which was done entirely by the protagonist's will purely for some good time. In this movie, such driving scene doesn't exist. It was either driving for someone or something. And there were also quite a number of death in this movie too, some which are very intense, which is not very fast & furios, which only have some deaths. This movie was more about a drama of revenge and gang busting starring Vin Diesel and Paul Walker with some hot cars in it. I don't think it deserves to be called the 4th movie because this one has so much less than what I expected because it's losing it's fast and furious factor. There are too little cars and too many dramas for a Fast & Furios movie. Still can't believe what I said? Go watch all of the previous 3 movies and then watch this one. Be honest with yourself. Newer doesn't automatically makes it better. I would say this as the worse entry of the franchise so far and if you have saw the first 3 movies, go watch it if you want to see a story progress. For newcomers to the movie, I suggest you watch any of the first 3 movies. And for movie goers and that doesn't have a problem with watching anything in the cinema, I think there could be other movies but you could still watch it if you're curious. For me personally though, I was kind of a let down. It wasn't a bad movie but it was ok. Just ok. There might be a sequel but I don't know.

I give it 6.5/10