Review: The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

Well, I just got back from seeing 3 Fast 3 Furious 3 Tokyo 3 Drift, and I was pleasantly surprised that it didn't suck nearly at all.

I remember reading through the daily scripts when I was on set, thinking that some of the dialogue was just awful, the same caliber as most of Anakin Skywalker's lines in Star Wars Ep. 2 and 3, and I guess the editors agreed with me because they cut out most of the really awkward bits, including the big kiss at the end where, for complicated reasons, they had to use a photo double in Lucas Black's place. In the end, it still wasn't Shakespeare - hell, it wasn't Joss Whedon, but for a big dumb fast action movie about a nonsense racing style that actually gets you to the finish line slower than just driving normally, it worked well enough, and didn't cause me too much emotional or intestinal distress.

A few criticisms:

• The cellphone camera POV shots. Lame. What is this, a Verizon commercial?
• The credits went by way too quickly, and kept spinning around, so I was able to neither confirm nor deny that my name was listed under "Stunt Players".
• All the mid-race rapid cutting back and forth from Racer 1's face, Racer 2's face, and Racers 1 and 2's hands, wheels, etc. etc.. At moments, it made it hard to figure out exactly what the hell was going on. But maybe that's just me getting slow in my old age, and in a few months I'll be sitting on a porch swing with a shotgun across my lap yelling at passing kids to get off the damn lawn.

I liked it, though. Hell, I saw it get filmed, so it's not like I didn't know how the races were going to end, and some of the racing bits still had me on the edge of my seat, heart rate up, arthritis givin' me both barrels.

I give it seven out of ten Steve McQueens. I thought it may have been better than the first Furious movie, and was definitely better than the facepunchingly bad 2 Fast 2 Furious. By my usual rating system, I'd rate it 6 dollars, $6.50 if you can find a showing that's not filled with the loud teenage spiky-headed douchebags that seem to always love movies like this.


*SPOILERS IN THIS PARAGRAPH*
Also, that bit at the end with Vin Diesel? I had no idea that was going to happen, after being on set with first unit every single day they filmed in this country. Surprised the crap out of me, or maybe that's just me losing bowel control after all these years.
*END SPOILERS*

More random stuff to watch for:

• Near the beginning, right after Lucas gets off the plane, he's going up a long escalator. A few people back behind him, you can see a couple of airline pilots. One of them is Justin Lin, the director. If I recall correctly, the other one is Clayton Townsend, the executive producer.
• During the training montage at the docks, one of those old fisherman guys is Keiichi Tsuchiya, the real-life "Drift King". If you're not into the drifting scene, you don't know who he is. Don't worry about it, neither do I, but I guess he's kind of a big deal for the drifting crowd.
  
• After the movie, drive carefully back home. I guarantee the cops will be around the corner salivating at the thought of ticketing all the aforementioned spikey-headed douchebags who will be driving like complete asshats as soon as they get back in their cars. Not having rear-drive or any actual ability to drift will not stop them from trying to drift, trust me on this.