Directed by Justin Lin, the same director as Tokyo Drift (though not the same as the first two movies), I was expecting Fast and Furious (or Fast and Furious 4) to be just as bad, if not worse than Tokyo Drift. That said, Vin Diesel and Paul Walker are back this time around, giving me a glimmer of hope that this would at least reach the (low) bar set by the first movie. Luckily, my hopes were not smashed.

This time around, Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and FBI agent Brian O’Connor (Paul Walker) are back in Los Angeles in pursuit of some criminals. O’Connor is of course taking the lawful route with the FBI, while Toretto is set on dishing out his own kind of justice. Their latest adventure takes them through the streets of L.A. to the Mexican desert and back, and along the way, Toretto and O’Connor must trust each other if they hope to overcome their shared enemy, and of course must do some impressive driving.

Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and Brian O'Connor (Paul Walker) must work together to defeat a shared enemy in Fast and Furious

The Fast and the Furious (2001) was by no means a good movie, though it was perhaps passable when Paul Walker was not talking. 2 Fast 2 Furious dropped the ball by taking Vin Diesel out of the picture and throwing in Tyrese Gibson, whose acting is still just as bad as it was then. In The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, the ball wasn’t even in the vicinity, with Lucas Black giving a performance that I can only describe as one of the worst I’ve ever seen. That is, this series of movies started out at a mediocre level and just went down. It’s clear from the very beginning of Fast and Furious (and not just from the title), however, that the creators were not only trying to get back to the quality of the original, but exceed it. They approached these improvements in a number of ways, some more notable than others.

Fast and Furious tries and succeeds at improving over the first three movies in the series

Within the first five minutes I could tell the movie was better than the previous two. Paul Walker’s acting has improved considerably since 2 Fast, and Vin Diesel is Vin Diesel. Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez are also back in this movie, essentially completing the picture from the first movie. Michelle Rodriguez had a fairly small role here, but the chemistry between Brewster, Diesel, and Walker was the best it’s ever been – enough so as to almost make some of the scenes convey feelings. I didn’t find any lines in the movie cheesy, and just to be sure, I paid special attention to the packed audience of the theatre. Laughs were heard, but no groans, so I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that the writing of the lines and their delivery were both stepped up from previous movies in the series. That is, even from these two aspects, the movie was superior to the first one, and these aspects were easily the greatest improvement seen here.

The main cast from the first movie, including Jordana Brewster (above) have returned better than ever

I’m not a car junkie, but from what I saw throughout the movie I’d say there were enough nice cars to rev any car lover’s engine (sorry, I had to). What was more impressive to me, however, was the driving, and more specifically some of the shots. Without giving too much away, there’s an impressive scene where several cars are travelling through an underground tunnel. The roof of the tunnel seems to be only a foot or two above the cars, and about that much space on each side. Needless to say it looks almost impossible, and I found the effect fairly impressive. Assuming that the cars were actually that close and that some clever film trickery has not been employed, I can only imagine that they wrecked a few cars to get that shot. Most of the shots seemed to cast aside the flashy CGI look of some of the previous movies’ scenes, and get down to a more realistic level, bringing the movie to a slightly more believable level.

Fast and Furious departs from previous entries in the series by bringing things to a slightly more realistic level

The plot, writing, acting, and effects were all done much better than any of the previous entries in the Fast and the Furious series, and as such I can confidently say that this is the best one so far, and that anyone who got even a sliver of enjoyment out of any of the previous three should make a point of seeing this in theaters. It’s worth it.