Fast Five (2011) **

I have written before that the original "The Fast and the Furious" movie is not completely without charm. Still, I had no interest in seeking out any of the many sequels in this franchise. I read, however, that “Fast Five” is considered the best of the bunch, so I decided to give it a try.

The good thing about action movies with such meaningless plots is that it's easy to jump into the middle of a franchise. In this case, if you have seen the first movie, you can easily skip ahead to this, the fifth without missing a nuance, because, of all the things this franchise has – guns, fights, explosions, cars jumping over things – nuance is one thing it doesn't have. In “Fast Five,” you quickly figure out that Brian O'Connor (Paul Walker) has left the FBI and become a criminal fugitive to be with Mia (Jordana Brewster) and her hulking brother, Dom (Vin Diesel). It's also apparent that, at some point, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), Dom's girlfriend from the first movie, has died.

Things pick up in Brazil, where the crew is hiding out. Their friend Vince (Matt Schulze) has put together a heist so they can score enough cash to get new identities and disappear. The heist goes wrong, of course, leaving our anti-heroes on the run from both the law and a powerful cartel boss. A couple of American DEA agents are killed in the heist, so the U.S. responds by sending over a crack team of FBI agents led by agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson). Brian and Dom, meanwhile, assemble a cast of hard-driving crooks from the previous movies to help them rip off the cartel guy.

That's way more than you need to know. Plot is of such little importance to these movies as to make it ridiculous to try to summarize the story. These movies are about buff guys flexing their arms, hot babes leaning over, and fast cars drifting around corners. “Fast Five” has all of these in spades. As for what makes this one better than any of the other sequels, I'm at a loss. Maybe the arms are bigger (see Dwayne Johnson) or the babes are hotter (see Gal Godot). The cars couldn't really get any faster.

2 stars out of 5