The Fast & The Furious Trilogy (The Fast &
The Furious, 2 Fast 2 Furious & The Fast & The Furious – Tokyo Drift)
(Universal HD-DVD, except Tokyo Drift, HD-DVD/DVD Combo Format)
Picture:
B each Sound: B each/B-(DVD
side) Extras: B-/each Film:
The Fast & The Furious C
2 Fast 2 Furious C-
The Fast & The Furious – Tokyo
Drift C-
NOTE:
This set has since its posting been succeeded by the Blu-ray trilogy edition
and discontinued, but the transfers are exactly the same. You can read about the fourth film at this
link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8917/Fast+&+Furious+(2009/aka+Fast+&+F
Though
they are currently sold separately, the three films that so far make up The Fast & The Furious franchise
have been released in HD-DVD at the same time and this is the first time one of
the two formats has had this happen for its first three films at the same time
and in the same format. The Terminator films are all out on Blu-ray
now except the third, unless Warner issues it the other way as they likely
will.
As noted
in our original review of the second film, most racing films are bad this film
continues that bad trend. Long after the
Sylvester Stallone disaster Driven
(and the Franchise Pictures Company that produced it) have faded away, we are
now on a laughable third film in a series whose first installment was
considered a joke and tax write-off.
That was in 2001, in one of the last hits before the 9/11
catastrophe. Whether it would have been
a hit after that is questionable, but the film continued to establish Vin
Diesel as a real star who could even act and unfortunately established Paul Walker
as one who definitely could not.
The Fast & The Furious was directed by Rob Cohen and did
have some interesting moments, but there was nothing to impressive about its
look or feel, but it was the first major narrative film that dealt with the
current era of custom cars, racing and the culture, albeit a Hollywoodized
one. By being less clichéd than Driven, it landed up being the bigger
hit. More laughable than upon it
original release, it is still barely the best of the three films as Cohen at
least knows his audience.
John
Singleton used to be able to say the same thing, but has lost his way (give or
take Hustle & Flow, as producer)
since Rosewood and 2 Fast 2 Furious remains second only to
his hideous Shaft remake as his
worst film, though Four Brothers
(reviewed on HD-DVD elsewhere on this site) comes close to both. Since I already explained why this one is so
bad, here is the link to that review:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/668/2+Fast+2+Furious+(Widescreen+DVD-V
That was
a while ago and looking at it again, it has aged very badly. It should be said that Tyrese and not the
returning Paul Walker had more appeal here, so thus should have gone on to more
interesting projects. He is also the
better actor. That leaves the latest
installment.
Tokyo Drift is aptly named since the script
cannot stay focused and neither can the camera.
Since the series decided to stay low budget and Walker became too costly
to hire, producers hired Lucas Black and suddenly, the film became more
interesting. Black is a better actor,
the “Southern Boy” routine is amusing (a throwback to Driven star Burt Reynolds) and his character wrecks more autos that
the Duke Boys, so producers even covered the awful Dukes Of Hazzard remake (also reviewed on HD-DVD elsewhere on this
site) swoop.
The
unknown Justin Lin was handed directing chores, yet his work here is no better
or worse than his predecessors because the material is of the same silly
quality. At this point, everyone knows
what to expect and the MTVish editing is just too predictable. The plot gets expectedly ridiculous, but when
Black lands up in Japan with the hotshot racer son of a Yakuza (Japanese Mafia)
head, this gets outright idiotic, yet knows it and stays silly. The film is also the most pandering by
including the Asian culture in a token way.
Sure, Japan looks good, but they are not even smart enough to treat it
as a character.
So
forgetting about the lack of substance and content, the reason to get these
titles on HD-DVD is high performance of the picture and sound, right? Well, yes and no. The films are all shot in Super 35mm film and
presented here in 2.35 X 1 1080p digital High Definition quality, with Tokyo Drift’s flipside DVD version lesser
2.35 X 1 anamorphically enhanced 480-line quality.
The first
film has aged well enough since digital effects were not used to death and this
HD-DVD does look better than its predecessors, but Ericson Core’s
cinematography was nothing groundbreaking and half the tricks are in the jumpy
editing. 2 Furious was shot by Matthew F. Leonetti, A.S.C., and he was
supposed to make the next film look more expensive. Oddly, it looks phonier and has more digital
work, plus this new HD-DVD transfer is not really much better than the somewhat
impressive regular DVD. You only get
minor improvements in this case, but read more at the link above.
That
leaves the two versions on the HD-DVD/DVD Combo disc of Tokyo Drift, shot by Stephen F. Windon, A.C.S., but the Digital Internegative
(DI) work is so phony that it was even annoying on the 35mm theatrical film
prints! Here, it looks phony in HD and
is even more degraded on the regular DVD side.
Many people seem impressed by these images, especially of the colorful
cars and Japan, but a comparison to Sophia Coppola’s Lost In Translation (also recently shot in Japan) is far superior
visually, even if the regular DVD is mixed.
If
anything, the recolorization is so bad here that I thought Elton John would
show up with a bunch of dancers (Asian or otherwise) and start singing Sad Songs Say So Much with a Hip
Hop/Electronica beat! That points to a
problem with the whole series in that it tries far too hard to be hip and keep
the lack of attention span of its supposedly “drifting” audience has.
Then here
is the sound, only Dolby Digital Plus in all three cases, while the DVD side of
Tokyo Drift is stuck with standard
Dolby. Note that none of these discs
have Dolby TrueHD or DTS of any kind and the reason why is though the mixes
have bass-heavy music and surround trickery that distract the target audience
from noticing the lack of story, it looks like the sonics of the masters are
not up to their hype. The first film has
an interesting mix that emphasizes the music, but the budgetary limits show in
the digital 5.1 theatrical release. The
second film has more Hip Hop, but is a little clearer. This is a case where not using DTS was an
especially bad idea. The latest film has
a surprising harshness on the edges as it did in theaters and seems overly
processed. If the sound was handled
different and the DI for the image was not so plastic, Tokyo Drift would easily be the best performer of the three, but it
is just not that good. Sure, this might
sound better than John Frankenheimer’s Grand
Prix on HD-DVD, but I bet the car chases in Frankenheimer’s 1997 Spy
thriller Ronin would blow all three
of these discs away sonically and visually.
Of
course, all three are awash in extras.
The first film has stunts with the multi-angle function, an obligatory
making of featurette, deleted/extended scenes, Music Video, Visual Effects
piece & separate montage, trailers, behind the scenes with Coen personally
and several pieces that fetishize the cars.
The link above explains the second film’s extras, while the third has
deleted scenes, audio commentary, a piece on customizing 230 cars (including
the amusing Hulkmobile), a digital car customizing section, on location in
Japan, an “art of drifting” piece that shows you how to get your cars to slide
around (which worked much better in Mission:
Impossible II) and the HD-DVD has the In-Movie Experience function that
allows you to get a picture-in-picture look at the film while it plays with
still and statistical sub-options that are supposed to be car-like. At least souped-up cars, I guess.
Ultimately,
this is supposed to be eye candy and maybe ear candy meant to sell HD-DVD
players early on in the format, leaving Universal no better time than the
present to issue the films in this format while they are considered fresh
enough to a fickle crowd. I guess there
will be a fourth one considering the goofy ending of Tokyo Drift, but its here.
The only thing we can say is don’t believe al the hype and don’t have
your hopes up too high. These films are
only so substantial.
- Nicholas Sheffo
