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Fast And The Furious Trilogy (The)
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Universal Pictures Review written by and copyright: Adam Palcher (3rd June 2009). |
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The Film
 "The Fast And The Furious" (2001) This franchise has become a monster upon itself spawning 3 sequels and multiple millions of dollars. Cashing in on the MTV generation has never been so easy, with flashy cars, booming action and beautiful looking people this film has everything that somebody who loves cinema can truly despise. Not only is this a blatant rip off of the 1991 classic "Point Break" but it hires a cast that is generally new to the game. Not to say there is not a few guilty pleasures within the film, but upon re-watching it certainly does not hold up. Granted this is a summertime popcorn flick so you expect a certain amount of cheesiness to be involved, so I can forgive the one-liners and the over-the-top action. What you receive on top of all that is a poorly directed, poorly acted MTV whore-a-thon. Even though the underground street racing racket does prominently exist and have passion behind it, I don’t believe for one second that this movie represents what that world is about. Trying to trick you into this world with flashy cars and fire from mufflers, it’s like watching a skittle induced acid trip with buff dudes and women as nothing but sex objects. Paul Walker plays an undercover cop Brian O’Conner who infiltrates the world of street racing to find a group of racers who are highjacking trucks on the interstate. Dom Toretto, played by Vin Diesel, is the leader of the underground circuit and host of the late night death deifying street car races. Dom and his crew are portrayed as a dysfunctional family coming from broken homes and fulfilling every stereotype in the book. Brian gets in good with Dom and has to prove himself as a prominent street racer and a friend. Eventually, we get the same story arcs as "Point Break" with 100 mph effects and action. A huge chunk of my hatred with this film comes from Michelle Rodriguez who has become the most unwatchable person in the history of acting, her painful portrayal as Letty is one for the record books. I can handle most any film that is pure BS, but it’s infuriating to me to watch such senseless directing. It’s like watching my Dad try and rap with the gangster kids down the corner. Director Rob Cohen immerses himself in a world he doesn’t appreciate and in turn convolutes a studio executives wet dream of what they think exist in this world by slamming the pedal to the medal on the action, music, editing and effects that eventually becomes laughable. This movie is not going for the intellect crowd; it’s gunning for the car geeks and action freaks. There is nothing wrong with enjoying this movie; there are a few cool stunts, effects, and car chase scenes but don’t expect anything new to be brought to the table and be ready for an onslaught of product placement. "2 Fast 2 Furious" (2003) As we continue to the first sequel we get director John Singleton behind the camera to continue the story of Paul Walker’s character Brian O’Conner, but this time he is on the run from the law in L.A. and has moved to Miami, where he is the big shot street racer with killer good looks and even better driving skills. Brian eventually gets caught by the police and the never helpful agent from the first film, Agent Bilkins (Thom Barry), offers Walker an opportunity to clear his record if he goes undercover again. With a supporting cast of Eva Mendes, Cole Hauser, and Tyrese Gibson this film is a more elegant blend of the first film with a similar predictable story. Though the direction in this film is leaps and bounds better than the first it’s still hard to see a heavy hitter like Singleton fall prey to an overblown franchise like "The Fast and the Furious". I have seen him make much better films with heart and meaning and wish he didn’t continue the unreasonable world of teenagers with endless money and ridiculous looking cars. A story about the underground street market could be really interesting and not over bloated, but alas we once again get a subpar movie with a director that can do better. The acting is definitely more tolerable with Ludacris being my favorite character to watch. He’s basically playing himself, but I always chuckle a little bit when he comes on screen. Walker and Tyrese play a brother-type duo and Tyrese would be the only actor that is a little hard to watch, but I think that his tough guy character persona is fitting for the character. Hauser plays the villain with a ridiculous amount of cash and house that is just as fitting as his clothes. Seemingly modeling his character after Tony Montoya, a little too much, Tyrese even makes a joke in a Scarface voice to make me wonder if the writing in the film is meant to be more of a joke than popcorn smodder. Overall, we get another victim of the franchise and unfortunately it took a respectable director down a notch. It seems Singleton needs to stick to the harder hitting, personal stories rather than try and fill his gap with franchise sequels and badly written material. "The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift" (2006) The surprising third act of "The Fast And Furious" franchise is not only the best directed, but the most tolerable as well. With newcomer Justin Lin behind the camera he brings a fresh perspective to the Furious downfall and delivers an inventive and beautiful film. Now don’t get me wrong this movie still has lots of clichés and problems, but compared to the past two efforts we get Lin bringing the background to Tokyo, Japan and exploring a new style of driving called Drifting. The story is based around a troublesome high school boy who can’t seem to stay out of trouble. He gets sent to live with his father in Tokyo and once he’s in Tokyo he discovers the Tokyo Drift circuit, against his father’s will, while making friends and enemies will other drifters and schoolmates. The father/son relationship is very lame, as is the reasoning for him being there. The best thing that I took away from this film was the drifting itself. It’s great to see the franchise shift to a different style of racing and one that really isn’t that well known. Lin informs the audience of this rare style and displays it on screen in a classy and beautiful way. The beauty is partially due to the fact that the drifting itself is a beautiful way to handle a car and not an easy task to perfect. The main character Sean, played by Lucas Black, is a southern boy who isn’t shy to prove his point and challenge the bad guy. Black’s character depth is a bit thin and his relationship with the bad guy, D.K. (Brian tee), is the main plot device of the film and overall doesn’t work. The acting is solid and not over eccentric, except for Bow Wow’s character Twinkie, but nothing too cringe worthy. Overall, the story is weak and similar to the other films, but Lin’s direction is more inventive and not too extreme. Taking the opportunity to really use Tokyo as a character and the drift racing adds an unusual style to watch by creatively using lighting, effects, cinematography, and editing to visually be gentle to the viewer.
Video
"The Fast And The Furious" - These movies were made to watch in high definition. With the brilliant buzzes and bright colors of the cars to the zooming blurs of the special effects. The one thing this movie has going for it is the video transfer. Presented in 1080p 24/fps with VC-1 compression, 2:35:1 ratio this film pops and has depth with the action scenes that genuinely look how most transfers should. "2 Fast 2 Furious" - Similar to the first film this one shows a terrific backdrop with a slightly different presentation with 1080p 24/fps using AVC MPEG-4 compression, 2:35:1 ratio. Singleton allows the effects to go haywire on paper, but it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t transfer well, with the blues of Miami and the fluorescents of the cars proving, if you are a fan of this movie, that this could be a staple to show off your new TV. "The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift" - As mentioned above in this third installment Lin brings Tokyo to the screen and does so in a respectable way, showing off the vibrancy of the city and making it a character unto itself. Along with the stunning drifting sequences on open canyon roads you see the cleanliness soar with examples of waster splashing on tires, etc. and it helps you involve yourself in this world. Also presented in with 1080p 24/fps with AVC MPEG-4 compression, 2:35:1 ratio.
Audio
"The Fast And The Furious" - Along with the video the sound on these transfers are immaculate. Truly giving the audience a full surround sound experience presented in English DTS-HD Lossless Master Audio 5.1 Surround track (48kHz/24-bit) which is an upgrade from past HD versions of the film. Every end of the speaker is erupting with full surround on every centimeter as the cars zoom and the explosions boom you feel like you are rumbling in your seat and that you are on the street they are racing on. Also included are DTS 5.1 tracks in both French and Spanish. Subtitles are presented in English for the hearing impaired, Spanish, and French. "2 Fast 2 Furious" - Robust and low-end bass prove to match up with the first film here as engines roar and guns blaze. The pans are so pitch perfect hear I sometimes found myself wondering where everything is coming from. Front and back end are so much fun and score is better represented here than the first film, also with an English DTS-HD Lossless Master Audio 5.1 Surround track (48kHz/24-bit) presentation. Also included are DTS 5.1 tracks in both French and Spanish. Subtitles are presented in English for the hearing impaired, Spanish, and French. "The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift" - One thing that stuck out for me during the Tokyo Drift surround experience is the sonic details that exudes and bleeds from the speakers. The tires screeches and car crashes are prominent demo worthy mixes for you guests as we get another upgrade of English DTS-HD Lossless Master Audio 5.1 Surround track (48kHz/24-bit). Also included are DTS 5.1 tracks in both French and Spanish. Subtitles are presented in English for the hearing impaired, Spanish, and French.
Extras
Universal have packed these disc with a lot of extras that include an audio commentary, a vast collection of featurettes, a documentary, deleted scenes, music videos, theatrical trailer and a collection of Blu-ray exclusive extras among other things. Below is a closer look at these supplements. All of the films include the following extras: "Tech Specs" is a U-Control interactive feature which allows you to check the stats of the main vehicles in the film, insurance rates, and choose an array of colors. "MyScenes" bookmarks, pretty run-of –the-mill with Universal Blu-ray titles, you can bookmark your favorite scenes for access after you eject the disc from your player. D-Box enabled, hook up any of this trilogy Blu-ray discs to a D-Box motion enabled home theater. BD-Live, Universal has BD-Live enabled all of the discs in this set. At press time, no new content has been announced; some features below enable this option, if desired. DISC ONE: "The Fast And The Furious" Audio commentary over the movie with the director Rob Cohen also has a video option available for small clips through the movie. An icon will appear for these sequences if you choose that option. The commentary has a passionate Cohen going through some crucial detail of the film and you can tell he really loved making this movie. You can also tell he is trying to way too hard to sound cool, spouting off lingo and trying to appeal to the MTV crowd. Overall informative, nothing too special here. A handful of deleted scenes running for 6 minutes and 24 seconds. These scenes look absolutely horrible with more blur and grain than a regular standard def version. These must be 2nd or 3rd generation tapes, truly ugly. The scenes are left out for a reason, one scene the 4 main guys are just sitting around with their shirts off eating sandwiches and telling stories, some are just a few seconds long. Each scene has an optional commentary track with director Rob Cohen. Scenes are: - “Brian & Mia Walk To Car” - “Tanner & Brian in Police House” - “Brian & Jesse Outside Toretto’s Garage” - “Trading Driving Stories” - “Hector & Brian at Razor’s Edge” - “Brian & Mia At The Beach” - “Original Edit Of the Ferrari Scene (Extended Scene)” - “Extension of Race Wars Fight Scene (Extended Scene)” "Hot off the Street" is a 4 minute and 42 second separate sequence of what seems to be MORE deleted scenes, I have no clue why these are not under the deleted scenes tab in the disc menu, they look equally as bad resolution. Scenes are: - “Brian & Mia at the Lunch Counter” - “Leon, Jesse, and Dom at Torreto’s House” - “Torreto’s House BBQ” - “Torreto’s Garage, Post Raid (Alternative Version)” - “Ferrari and Supra Race” "Paul Walker PSA" is a 36 second standard definition promotional advertisement warning that the action in the movies are stunts by professional actors, drive safe, etc. "Making Of The Fast And The Furious" is a basic Universal behind-the-scenes featurette with interviews of the cast and crew talking about how unique the movie is and some of their experience. Nothing groundbreaking here, but would be fun for fans of the movie. A mixture of both SD and HD throughout, running 18 minutes and 3 seconds. "More Than Furious" another randomly placed deleted scene, which I think is suppose to be an alternate ending but it’s never clarified, running 2 minutes and 23 seconds. The scene contains Mia and Brian in Dom’s garage followed by a cityscape shot presented in SD. "Tricking Out A Hot Import Car" featurette is a huge fluff piece for the movie for real die-hard racing fans. A 19 minute and 10 seconds show that is hosted by Craig Liberman, who built a lot of the vehicles in "The Fast and the Furious" and "2 Fast 2 Furious" and of course his co-host a Playboy Playmate who only loves guys with fast cars. These two painfully flirt with each other as Craig goes through every small aspect to pimping out your car. "Turbo Charged Prelude to 2 Fast 2 Furious" featurette is another painful extra feature that is pure fluff. This 6 minute and 12 second prelude shows Walker’s character demise out of the police force and scouring the country by dogging cops and racing to make mends meet, and of course running into plenty of hot girls on the way! We get no dialogue and horrible blue screen special effects. This is presented in SD and plays out more like a music video, totally pointless. Multiple camera angles "Stunt Scene" this is an option that gives you 8 different camera angles of the final Charger crash sequence. Presented in SD. "Movie Magic Interactive: Special Effects" multiple camera angles is another option that allows you to see 3 different angles of the train jump scene with and without special effects and one with final composition. "Editing for a Motion Picture Association Of America" featurette runs 4 minutes and 35 seconds, in SD, of the director Rob Cohen and editor Peter Honess trying to cut out blood and action to get a 'PG-13' rating. We might as well have a 5-minute segment of Cohen washing his laundry in the place of this “featurette”, not interesting at all and Cohen is trying way to hard to conform to what anyone tells him to do. "Visual Effects Montage" is a 3 minute and 44 second montage featurette of special effects, CGI, blue screen and storyboards to match up with the final composition of the film, SD. Storyboards-to-Feature comparisons, the title says it all, a 6 minute 50 second version of the opening racing sequence showing both the storyboards to the film stacked upon each other, SD. "Sneak Peek at 2 Fast 2 Furious" featurette, the cast and crew on the set of "2 Fast 2 Furious" explain how great it is to come back and give the audience what they want. This is a basic preview of the sequel and an introduction to the story and characters. Running 5 minutes and 11 seconds, SD. Music videos have a total runtime of 13 minutes and 11 seconds this option gives us the music videos from the soundtrack: - "Soundtrack" promo spot runs for 44 seconds. - "Furious" by Ja Rule runs for 4 minutes 8 seconds. - "POV City Anthem" (edited version) by Caddillac Tah runs for 4 minutes 20 seconds. - "Click Click Boom" by Saliva runs for 3 minutes 58 seconds. The original theatrical trailer of "The Fast and the Furious" running 1 minute and 43 seconds, in standard definition. "Dom’s Charger" is a 4 minute and 21 second featurette of Vin Diesel and crew talking about how the exposition of Dom’s Dodge Charger in the film and what a great looking car it is, and how hard they are to come by. Presented in mostly HD, with a few SD interviews mixed in. Exclusive to the Blu-ray. "Quarter Mile At A Time" is yet another exclusive featurette presented in HD and running 9 minutes and 44 seconds. This delves into the subculture of street racing and gives a history from the cast and crew’s perspective, with a number of old footage and passion for the culture and how it transfers to today. Pretty interesting for the most part. "Fast And The Furious Video Mash Up" interactive feature that is also unique to the Blu-Ray, presented in HD. You can choose and re-edit certain scenes, add music behind them and create a new ending. Incorporation of the BD-Live feature is available if you would like to send it to a friend. Picture-In-Picture video commentary is a U-control option that allows you to see behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with the director throughout the movie. This seems a tad pointless if you would rather listen to the commentary, with footage from the above featurettes and similar content to the commentary, nothing visually new. DISC TWO: "2 Fast 2 Furious" The option for a John Singleton director audio commentary track is available on this Blu-ray disc and is one of the only worthy information about the film. Though he has a few flops, the directing was one of the few things about this movie that are better than the first. He has his own style and sounds genuine in his love for the first movie and directing the sequel. "Fast Females" exclusive featurette is a 7 minute and 54 second HD look at the role of the females in all 4 of the films. Delving into the characters like Letty, Mia, Monica and Suki. This feature seems like an oxymoron, talking about how important the female characters are when 90% of the women in the films are more sex objects than deep character studies, as these interviews claim them to be. I found most of the characters, especially Michelle Rodriguez, non-believable and untreatable. "Hollywood Impact" exclusive featurette, hahaha, oh man, just when I thought the features couldn’t get more ridiculous. We have the biggest fluff piece of the century with Hollywood studio executives hamming up what a huge impact these movies have had on culture and Hollywood itself. Arguing the main motive as being everyone can relate to driving in a car. Featuring interviews with Leonard Maltin and Joel Stein this featurette was a hard watch, unless you truly believe these films where cinematic history. These guys even compare "The Fast And The Furious" trilogy to "American Graffiti" (1973) and "Back To The Future" (1985). Presented in HD, running 13 minutes and 23 seconds. "Turbo Charged Prelude to 2 Fast 2 Furious" featurette is the same exact feature that is on the first film special features. Here’s the rebuttal for those who didn’t read the above description: “This 6 minute and 12 second prelude shows Walker’s character demise out of the police force and scouring the country by dogging cops and racing to make mends meet, and of course running into plenty of hot girls on the way! We get no dialogue and horrible blue screen special effects. This is presented in SD and plays out more like a music video, totally pointless.” Deleted scenes, 6 minutes and 6 seconds worth of deleted scenes, including optional audio commentary by both the editor, Bruce Cannon, and director John Singleton himself introducing each scene. There are a total of 7 scenes and no names of them scenes. Nothing to speak of here, and a good chunk of the scenes are extended version that were cut mainly for time, SD. Next are 2 minutes and 43 seconds of behind-the-scenes outtakes. Nothing truly that weird or funny, it’s mainly Tyrese acting goofy, kooky and annoying for the sake of bad acting skills, SD. "Inside2 Fast 2 Furious" featurette runs for 10 minutes and 2 seconds of behind-the-scenes footage of the film, with interviews with cast and crew. Again, pretty run-of-the-mill Universal featurette and a good chunk of the featurette is stolen from the 6-minute preview we got from the original movie’s extra features. Not really worth your time since most segments are repeated, except somebody mentioning the “mind blowing stuff” in the movie, SD. "Tricking Out A Hot Import Car" featurette, again, another stolen feature from the first movie’s special features, but this time edited down to 3 minutes and 21 seconds. The rebuttal from above: “A huge fluff piece for the movie for real die-hard racing fans. A show that is hosted by Craig Liberman, who is Technical Advisor and has built a lot of the vehicles in "The Fast and the Furious" and "2 Fast 2 Furious" and of course his co-host a Playboy Playmate who only loves guys with fast cars. These two painfully flirt with each other as Craig goes through every small aspect to pimping out your car.” Less flirting shown in this version, basically the same gist. "Actor Driving School" featurette, is a 6 minute 38 second feature with Tyrese Gibson, Paul Walker and Devon Aoki taking driving classes, learning the tricks of the trade, and the magic of the movies all in one boring class. Unless you really are into the stunt aspect of the film, without the stunts, you can pass on this. "Supercharged Stunts" is a 5 minute and 37 second effects featurette mainly concentrating on the end scene where a car jumps onto a boat. This featurette cuts down the scene and shows the 3 different shots they had to create to get this major final stunt scene, SD. "Making Music With Ludacris" featurette is a 4 minute and 59 second making of Ludacris' new music single for the film called “Act A Fool”. We get footage of his record both the song and video itself. I like Ludacris and think he has a pretty funny presence, so I enjoyed the featurette. John Singleton directs the video and is presented in SD. "Actor Spotlights" featurette, is a 6 minutes and 58 seconds of video spotlights highlighting the careers and experiences of Tyrese Gibson, Paul Walker and Devon Aoki. Walker’s interviews are the same as 2 other featurettes and Aoki and Tyrese really haven’t acted much so they generally talk about getting hired on to the film. "Car Spotlights" featurette runs 9 minutes and 15 seconds of video spotlights highlighting the featured cars in the film. The Spyder, the Evo VII, and the S2000 all get an in-depth coverage from the Technical Advisor Craig Liberman giving the qualities and strength of each car as matched up the character in the film. "Furious Afterburners" is a randomly place deleted scene feature replaying 2 of the scenes that Singleton already coved in the deleted scenes portion of the extras. Presented in SD and pointless. 3 minutes and 23 seconds. "Animated Anecdotes" is a pop-up trivia track option to play throughout the film and optimize the U-Control. Giving production info and pop-up trivia throughout the film. DISC THREE: "The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift" As I said above I actually think "Tokyo Drift" is the most well directed film of the three and was intrigued by the audio commentary track from director Justin Lin. The commentary shows the director is truly passionate about making this movie even though it’s a cookie cutter plot and excuse for action. He seems to just be excited about making a movie and in turns makes it exciting to listen too, giving details on production and special effects. "Making The Fast Franchise" exclusive featurette, includes interviews with the cast and crew of each of "The Fast And Furious" films discussing why people responded to these films and why there was justification to so many sequels. Mostly consist of on-set interviews of each film and giving us a general retrospective of the series, including the new "Fast & Furious" (2009) film that recently came out in theatres. All these interviews have been use and seen before, nothing new here about the gushing of these paid cast and crew. Presented in HD, with some SD interviews mixed in with a running time of 17 minutes and 2 seconds. "Drift: A Sideways Craze" exclusive documentary is probably the best feature on this films extra features is this 1 hour HD show, giving us the history of drifting in a well shot, interesting documentary that shows drifting as the future of motorsports. Delving into the subculture but not in a cheesy way by using real people and nobody from the film to talk up how great it is. This suto-doc gives us interesting real life experiences and showing real life drifting competitions and exposing us to three separate stories with different levels of drifting experience. This is a really cool extra and shows why Justin Lin chose to have drifting as the main focus if the 3rd film. "Custom Made Drifter" interactive feature option allows fans to create their own drifter by changing the color, wheels, and highlight of a car. There is only one car option but could be a cool feature for car dorks. Once your car is created it is replayed within a movie scene from the film. Nothing too fancy, but kind of fun, presented in HD. Deleted scenes runs for 18 minutes and 15 seconds with optional Justin Lin director audio commentary. Low standard definition presentation with scenes that are either extended or completely cut out. 18 minutes is a lot of movie, some scenes are taken out for good reason and some could have stayed in the film. Scenes are: - “Cabbie wants Yen” - “Crowded Subway” - “Where’s My Fiz?” - “Han, D.K., Aiden, and Egghead” - “Yak’s Girl’s” - “The Night Before the Morning After” - “One In Six Billion” - “Wasabi, Dad Sees Sean’s Evo” - “Golf Drifting” - “Happy Birthday to Han” - “A Kiss Before Kamata” "Drifting School" is a 7 minutes and 34 second featurette of the actors from the film learn how to actually drift on a huge course. Lots of rubbing burning and they look like they are having fun, SD. "Cast Cam" featurette runs 4 minutes and 19 seconds of an unknown cast member with their own camera interviewing random extras and crew. Nothing really important is in this featurette, mostly people making funny faces to the camera, SD. "The Big Breakdown: Han’s Last Ride" featurette is a breakdown of the final Tokyo chase scene with the deconstruction of the stunts, the action, and the green screen special effects. Naming L.A. as a transformed Tokyo for some of the final segments. Pretty interesting if you are into the magic of the movies and how they create nothing into something. Running 8 minutes and 26 seconds, presented in SD. "Tricked Out To Drift" featurette runs 11 minutes, that is much more bearable than the past efforts, with Dennis McCarthy about the design and creation of the cars in "Tokyo Drift". Naming the most popular cars in the films and what a sad waste it is to see the multiples get destroyed and banged up. He gets pretty detailed to those whose gush over this kind of thing, SD. "Welcome To Drifting" is yet another drifting featurette relishing in the subculture and background of the style of driving. Giving us an introduction on drifting and re-using interviews we’ve seen already, pretty pointless for the amount of drifting extras we get. Running 6 minutes and 12 seconds in SD. "The Real Drift King" featurette runs a short 3 minutes and 37 seconds about the real life drift legend Keiichi Tsuchiya. This featurette concentrates on his legend and creation of drifting, along with behind-the-scenes help and contribution to the film, SD. "The Japanese Way" is a 9 minute and 44 second featurette about the location of Tokyo as a main part of the film. Describing its own character and vibrancies in the film and in general itself. It seems most of the cast had never even been to Japan before and was a new and exciting experience for them, SD. Music videos runs a total of 7 minutes and 57 seconds of the music from the film. Two music videos and a promo spot are included. They include: - “Canteo” by Don Omar which is some painful Spanish rapper recreating a scene from the movie and runs for 3 minutes 33 seconds. - “Round Round” by Far*East Movement runs for 4 minutes 6 seconds that looks more like a joke band, but I can’t really tell, SD. - "Soundtrack" promo runs for 17 seconds. Rounding out the extras are the "GPS mapping" interactive feature which you can access while watching the movie and the "Animated storyboards" feature which is a sort of video commentary with storyboards.
Packaging
Each film is packaged in a standard Blu-ray case housed in a cardboard slip-case.
Overall
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