FAST FIVE – justin lin – 6.4 / 10

We seem to have reached a point with the big Hollywood summer blockbusters where as long as they aren’t failures on every level, critics will give them a pass.  The fanboy edict that a viewer 'turn off their brain' and just enjoy the film 'for what it is' seems to have won the day as that's become the de facto standard by which these sorts of movies seem to be judged.  Critics who give the same three-and-a-half-star rating to Fast Five as they give to something like The Social Network can't possibly be making the comparative judgment that the two movies are of similar quality.  And yet it's not uncommon for brain-dead films like this one to earn a similar (or higher) grade than films that by any reasonable standard are far more artistically successful.  The only conclusion that can be reached must be that the two films are not being judged on the same criteria.

And while my first inclination is to bemoan this degrading of standards and argue for some kind of universality in mainstream film criticism, I can see the point.  Yes, critics forgive Fast Five sins that they would never forgive a film like The Social Network (the incredibly hokey dialogue, for instance) and that seems to be unfair on its face.  But any dialogue scene in a movie like Fast Five so clearly exists only to motivate the action sequence that is surely coming within the next five minutes that it begs the question of just how important that dialogue really was.  And if the action sequence in question is compelling, interesting and thrilling in and of itself, does it really matter that the dialogue scene that led into it was incredibly lame?  The overall experience of the two scenes taken together is an enjoyable one, so in the end, who cares that the dialogue was stupid?

The enjoyment to be had in watching a film like The Social Network is in seeing a good story told well.  The enjoyment in watching a film like Fast Five is in seeing multiple rousing, outrageous and occasionally original action sequences.  To say that Fast Five is an artistic failure because its plot is rote, its acting is terrible and its dialogue is laughable is to miss the point.  Those things are true, sure, but frankly, they just don’t matter that much.  The reason they don’t matter is because the action sequences more than compensate for those failings.  These films are sorta like porn; the connecting bits that get you to the money shots really don’t matter all that much.  And judging the movie by focusing on those elements just seems delusional and wrongheaded.

It might be incredibly obvious to say that the action is the only reason people watch films like Fast Five.  But that means something different today than it did even five years ago.  Today, the level of excitement, intensity and entertainment of a big Hollywood blockbuster action sequence is far superior to anything that was being done even relatively recently.  Hollywood has always done action well.  But in the CGI age, blockbuster action set-pieces have rapidly evolved, growing ever more elaborate and complex and filling ever more screen time.  They’ve become little movies in and of themselves.  It used to be that action was only compelling if the audience first cared about the characters.  Look at something like Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark or Die Hard, for instance.  The action in those films is no better or worse than in the many similar films that sprung up in their wake; and yet no one would mention those imitators in the same breath as the 'classics' even if the action was on par (or even superior).  But over the last few years the action sequences have really stepped up their game.  They're now so well-executed and so enthralling that they can overcome the audience's complete lack of interest in the characters.  Instead of caring whether or not, for instance, Dom and Brian survive the massive car chase at the end of Fast Five, the audience just wants to see what awesome stunts the filmmakers have orchestrated for it. 

I can’t emphasize enough how fundamental this shift is.  Audiences are now savvy enough to know that in a major Hollywood franchise picture like this one, none of the major characters are ever really in danger.  And so, no matter how much (or how little) the audience cares about them, they still won’t be all that invested in the dangers of any given sequence.  Instead, they just want to see what sort of ridiculous mayhem the filmmakers have devised to enable the lead characters' survival and eventual victory.

As the focus has shifted away from whether or not the characters survive to whether or not the action is suitably intense, original and compelling, the criteria for judging a film like this has changed.  That the audience for Fast Five doesn’t care about the characters or their situations isn't all that relevant to an overall evaluation of the film anymore.  Instead the criteria for judging the film are whether or not the many elaborate action scenes are handled with clarity, dexterity and even humor.  The characters of this film (or any of the countless others like it) are ciphers, yes, but decrying that at this late date seems beside the point.  The point is merely to evaluate the impressive level of destruction on display and the reaction that it engenders in the viewer.  And because the action sequences of Fast Five are intoxicating and gripping, the film can be judged largely a success. 

No one would put the character work on display here up against even the weakest indie relationship drama.  But that no longer matters.  That’s not why anyone watches a film like this anymore (if it ever was).  So judging it on that criteria just seems out of touch and pointless.  The action sequences and their effect on the audience are all that matters.  And by that measure, Fast Five largely succeeds.  Without compelling characters and an engrossing story, of course, no critic is going to give this thing their highest rating (witness my 6.4).  That’s just a bridge too far, especially when there are movies out there like Inception that manage the difficult trick of being engrossing and compelling in both the action sequences and the dialogue / plot scenes.  But if you’re not going to judge Fast Five by different criteria than you do The Social Network, then you really have no reason to even watch Fast Five in the first place.  Measured that way, you’d know the film was a failure before the first frame unspools. 

But all this strikes me as perhaps a rationalization.  Maybe because I know a film like Fast Five is going to completely fall on its face in terms of dialogue and character work, I’ve done exactly what the fanboys said I should and 'turned off my brain.'  Maybe because this is the only sort of film on offer during the summer months and I like going to the movies, I've found an intellectual reason to like these films (or at least to justify going to see them).  After all, once they're out of the theater, I'm rarely if ever going to revisit them.  I'm not putting Fast Five in my Netflix queue a month before it comes out on DVD because I can't wait to see it again, for instance. 

That may very well be the case.  But I can't help thinking that the action sequences, though always important in mindless movies like this, have taken on a new artistic life in the last half decade as CGI technology has finally caught up to filmmakers' visions.  They seem to be so much more central to the big Hollywood blockbusters of today than they ever were before.  And there are certainly many more of them on offer in a single film than has ever been true before.  The pace of something like Raiders of the Lost Ark is positively leisurely by today’s standards.

In the end, it might be impossible to judge effectively whether the movies have changed or if I've just capitulated, especially not from this close a vantage point.  All I can offer is that Fast Five is a fun time at the movies.  It doesn't stick with you when you leave the theater (unless maybe you drive a sports car and speed a little more than usual on the way home) and you won't be talking about it for months to come.  But it's fun while it lasts.  And given that this seems to be the only relevant criterion for evaluating a film like this anymore, that really should be enough to recommend it.