"Fast Five" is a lot of things.
Loud. Crazy. Unlikely. Bloated. Ludicrous. Credulity-straining.
Entertaining? Action-packed? Yeah, that too.
"Five" is, you might have guessed, the fifth entry in the "Fast and the Furious" series, this time bringing together a bunch of the actors from previous installments along with original stars Paul Walker and Vin Diesel. This assortment of characters from other sequels includes Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, and most everyone else coming back for what is now less an urban street-racing movie and more an "Italian Job"/"Ocean's Eleven"-type heist caper where they happen to drive cars around and make them do all sorts of things that violate the laws of physics, nature and good taste.
Here's the story: Former cop Brian O'Conner (Walker) is now an affirmed criminal, on the lam after springing buddy Dominic Torretto (Diesel) from the joint in an utterly ridiculous scene that sees a car-vs.-bus collision end with the car standing pat and the bus flipping like it was in "Another 48 Hrs."
The duo, along with Dom's sister/Brian's girl Mia (an emaciated-looking Jordana Brewster) — who is secretly with child — flee to Rio de Janeiro, meeting up with old buddy Vince (Matt Schulze) for one last job. This job ends with them pitted against the man who hired them, Rio's top crime boss/businessman Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida).
They're also on the bad side of federal super-agent named Hobbs (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson), who makes no bones about the fact that he views these two guys as two names in a file that he's been sent to take down. He has a team of faceless big-shot agent types who are mostly there to absorb gunfire while he charges into the scene to beat down some baddies. He does, however, give perhaps the best response to the cliched "I have good news and bad news" line that I've ever heard.
Oh, and he requests a rookie officer (Elsa Pataky, whom my trusty IMDB tells me is married to Chris Hemsworth, who we'll learn more about in next week's review of "Thor"), to be his liaison. Smart move because she proves to be incorruptible, except that she quickly develops a thing for Dom.
Brian and Dom decide to relieve Reyes of about $100 million and assemble their team of buddies to help them.
Honestly, there's not a whole lot here we haven't seen before. We have impossible car chases, improbable or even physically impossible stunts, crazy shootouts, characters switching sides, witty banter and pulled-off jobs that, to succeed, require about 46 different things to happen in a certain succession — with a likelihood of any one of them happening roughly equivalent to one's chances of being struck by lightning.
Oh, but there's one thing that "Five" has that other movies don't: Diesel vs. Johnson, one-on-one. It's a fight that lives up to the billing as well, but to say more would require me to hit this review with a spoiler tag.
The guys spend about much growling as smiling, creating a fun atmosphere despite some things that stretch the audience's willingness to suspend disbelief — like, you know, two guys in a car that's plummeting off a 300-foot cliff into a river simply jumping out into the water and surfacing with nary a scratch.
At more than 130 minutes, "Five" runs a little long, and there are a few spots that could have used a trim or two. But this is a minor quibble. As ridiculous as it is, "Five" is an undoubtedly fun ride. There are few surprises, but that doesn't mean that getting there isn't loads of fun.