And Vin 'Dom' Diesel plays Vin Diesel. He's the same dude in almost every movie he'll ever be in, in one he drives illegal races. In another he's got synthetic eyes. In another he snowboards out of an airplane. All the same. I want to see him in a Merchant Ivory film or something classic and British. He and Judi Densch are tight, maybe they could do an Austen adaptation together. Thats a trainwreck I'd pay to see opening night. OPENING. NIGHT.

I used to hate Vin, and not just because I was once referred to as resembling 'a wimpy Vin Diesel.' But then maybe a year ago, I came to realize something: I love shitty movies. I enjoy all kinds of movies, but I just can't help but lean towards the truly crap ones above others. It's intellectual slumming, I know. I should look for movies that truly move the heart or the mind, maybe watch more documentaries.

But what can I say? I like car crashes and ninjas in my movie.

The Fast and the Furious has plenty of wrecked cars, but not enough ninjas. Tho the main villains in this are asian, and are refreshingly non-stereotypical. Well, non-stereotypical in the sense of they aren't short, heavily accented math geniuses who carry twenty cameras around their necks. They're wealthy, sinister Asian-Americans who drive fancy cars, speak perfect english, and have machine guns. Progress in Hollywood baby! Which is funny because I just saw an Asian dude driving a tricked out Civic the other day. I know it was tricked out because he had a prominent 'Civic' decal on the windshield. In case I didn't recognize. I wonder if he also had nitrous oxide canisters hidden under the passenger seat. So this is perpetrating the new Asian stereotype, of being a car-obsessed Triad affiliate. I still call it progress.

Vroom! Vroom vroom vroom!!

The benchmark of a bad movie is the terrible dialogue. In a Bay/Bruckheimer movie, you will not get the unintentionally hilarious dialogue that you will in other crap movies. No, they try too hard to sound cool, where in the Fast and the Furious: they didn't really try that hard. In fact they basically changed it from surfing to street racing, made the lead 'bad guy' more ambiguous, and had less Swayze, Patron Saint of the Brilliantly Shitty Movie. See "Roadhouse" for more evidence.

Examples!
Dom: I live my life a quarter mile at a time. Nothing else matters: not the mortgage, not the store, not my team and all their bullshit. For those ten seconds or less, I'm free.
...might be the DUMBEST THING I EVER HEARD IN A MOVIE. Except for some of these riveting quotes, as provided by IMDB

Brian: I just need some more time.
FBI Officer: If you want time, buy the magazine!
Amost clever!

Vince: Why don't you try Fat Burger from now on? You can get yourself a cheese and fries for 2.95, faggot!
Brian: I like the tuna here.
Vince: Bullshit asshole, no one likes the tuna here!
Brian: Yeah well I do.
Riveting dialogue. You can really feel the tension between the two.

Grr! Drama!

Dom: You almost had me? You never had me - you never had your car... Granny shiftin' not double clutchin' like you should. You're lucky that hundred shot of NOS didn't blow the welds on the intake! Now me and the mad scientist gotta rip apart the block, and replace the piston rings you fried.

Okay, this was a big problem for me. I'm not a gearhead. Hell, I take the subway. I know nothing of cars, and I'll guess that perhaps 50% of the dialogue in this movie was based around talk like the above quote. car talk. And not the NPR Car Talk, this is like edgy street-racer car talk. And I have NO idea what any of that means, but I think that Vin is trying to explain that they can't get back to 1985 without fixing the flux capacitator.

Did I mention the car crashes? They were excellent.

Hey, it's not fine film. You want a deep, moving film go...somewhere else. I only know what I like, and what I like is whatever I want to see at the moment. Sometimes it'll be something heavy and profound, but more often than not it'll involve CGI, ninjas, or abnormally large wildlife eating people. Last night I was definitely in the mood for a easy movie to watch, something mindless and engaging with plenty of eye candy to hold my interest for however long. This Fast and the Furious did the job, as there was enough laughably bad shit in it to keep the movie from being totally shit. Check it out, if you can afford to see it without paying any money for it.