FAST FIVERating: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, sexual content and language.Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.
If the “Fast Five” filmmakers had thrown in giant, shape-shifting robots, talking apes and some vampires, the fifth installment in “The Fast and the Furious” franchise would hardly have been more outlandish.
That said, the movie will get you where you’re going. Pretty cars, prettier women, insanely absurd action that truly thrills even as it shatters all physical laws, and enough testosterone-fueled violence to satisfy the most-rabid WWE SmackDown crowd.
Opting for a blowout of a movie with no restraints whatsoever, the filmmakers wisely add former wrestling superstar Dwayne Johnson as a relentless federal agent to go toe-to-toe with Vin Diesel’s driving ace Dom Toretto, who’s again on the run along with his sister, Mia (Jordana Brewster), and cop-turned-outlaw Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker).
Any thwack from the inevitable Diesel-Johnson slug-fest might kill an ordinary human, but these characters basically are comic-book figures, so they’re able to wail the innards out of each other and come through with only a cosmetic bruise or two.