Why do I keep watching these sequels? Oh, right, the first scene with the bus, never mind. (And Jordana Brewster too).

THe three fugitives, Mia, her boyfriend and former FBI agent O'conner, and her brother Dom, are on the run again. In RIo this time. O'Conner takes a bad job that gets them stuck between a Rio businessman who wants his property and an elite government team that's hunting them and led by a character played by Dwayne Johnson. There's also an interesting (if not surprising) Mia subplot and a RIo female cop/Dom relationship subplot.

I always forget how surprisingly (for an action flick) good these movies in the Fast and Furious franchise can be. There's all the action, seriously hard core action. Flying off cliffs, gun fights, an awesome fist fight between Johns and Vin Diesel. And then there are caring and gentle scenes that are actually done really, really well. And stuff that's subtle, not your typical action flick fare, but nice.

I do wish that we got to see more of Rio, or at least some of the scenery in general at a slower pace. 'Cause the movie was most definitely a high octane, fast paced movie.

**Fast Five brings the action, beloved old characters, exciting new ones, and a whole lot of fun to the Fast franchise and the heist genre.**

Fast 4 and Fast 5 are the best of the Fast & Furious franchise. Fast 4 redeemed the series after the failure of Tokyo Drift by bringing back Vin Diesel and the cast and family of the first film. Then Fast 5 expands and adds to the crew with fan-favorite characters from across the series, including Han (Kang), Roman (Gibson), Tej (Ludacris), Gisele (Gadot), and more. The Toretto family plans a massive heist to buy their freedom but hot on their tale is Dwayne Johnson’s Hobbs, a perfect foil to Diesel’s Toretto. The face-off between these characters is epic! Fast Five’s bonkers action is a little more grounded than later entries, but it’s still outrageous fun. It feels kind of like The Italian Job, directed by Michael Bay. Fast Five launched the Fast Franchise into another decade of insane stunts and stories with great characters and commitment to embracing its cheesy awesomeness.

I'm not really a fan of these kinds of movies. I haven't even seen parts 1 and 2. I've seen part 3 (Tokyo Drift) which I think was a waste of time. I've seen part 4 just because everyone's watching it and surprisingly I liked it. I was even surprised to find out that Bryan O'Conner (Paul Walker) was a policeman. Haha!

So here I am, watching the fifth installment. Justine wanted to watch it badly and since I have nothing to do, I decided to accompany her. She was on leave the whole week and she just got back from Palawan. So before watching the movie, the 2 of us had dinner at Jack's Loft. I told her that we should buy tickets first but because we were lazy we forgot about it. When it was an hour before the movie, we were surprised. Sold out. Well, nearly sold out. There were like less than 10 seats. So we still went in line and luckily got seats even if the seats were bad and we were seated separately from each other.

I liked this movie. Although it was very unrealistic. (Hello? Where's the government of Rio?) I like how The Rock was there. I like him. I don't like Vin Diesl. I don't understand a word coming out of his mouth. Jordana was still pretty but she's not as pretty in this film. She's too thin. But all in all I liked it.

Picking up hot on the heels of the last film, the newly escaped "Dom" (Vin Diesel), his ex-FBI pal "O'Conner" (Paul Walker) and "Mia" (Jordan Brewster) have to keep skipping one step ahead of the pursuing law led by "Hobbs" (Dwayne Johnson) and, whilst cornered in Rio, they must assemble everyone with driving skills so as to thwart the ambitions of drug lord "Reyes" (Joaquim de Almeida) whom they have seriously hacked off. This effort sacrifices a little of the pace and speed of the other films and tries to focus on a slightly stronger story with some better characterisations - that does mean that it can be a bit on the slow side at times and maybe we get just one thoughtful pose from Diesel too many, but as we head towards a fairly predictable denouement this easily (for my money, anyway) tops the list of F&F films before clearly teeing us up for number 6. I think it's closer in quality and standard to the first film - and still has plenty of burnt rubber and lively stunts to keep it watchable.