Re: cars 2 vs. fast five ... which one do critics like more?

I think I must feel about Fast Five as some have about the Transformers
movies, at a loss to defend the respective film with any critical rationale
and yet unable to feel anything but wildly entertained. (fwiw, having seen
both, I'll go out on a limb and say Fast Five has 'better writing.' There, I
said it.)

Fast Five was a compulsively fun film. It's an automotive fantasy that
continues to diverge from reality, but, dude, Vin Diesel and Dwayne (The
Rock) Johnson had this /epic/ brawl, and Diesel and Paul Walker have this
set piece / stunt at the end which defies belief and is yet stunningly fun.
The interesting thing is that the film centers more around a heist in Rio de
Janeiro that incidentally involves cars than it does actual racing. In fact,
where there is a race among four of the principals, it's depicted as
nostalgic, almost an afterthought, a bone and a nod to the film that started
it all. Fast Five was Ocean's Eleven with fast cars and the xXx body type.
Furthermore, it appears the franchise a) is continuing forward, and b) is
following more of the heist storyline than the street racing storyline. It's
almost as if Butch and Sundance made it big in Bolivia by robbing banks from
inside amazing sports cars, both revisionist /and/ pandering. And yet,
strangely entertaining for all.

All I know is this: Fast Fast makes almost no sense, and was terrifically
entertaining. It was the why the term 'guilty pleasure' was coined.

Johne Cook
| http://raygunrevival.com | http://authorculture.blogspot.com |*
*


On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 10:52 AM, Peter T. Chattaway <
petert-LOVM4QxV+tDq6eQxt3vRmLDks+cytr/[email protected]> wrote:

> I've been looking at Rotten Tomatoes the last few days to see how critics
> are feeling about Cars 2 (which I have not yet seen).
>
> And, um, wow.
>
> A couple days ago, it was "rotten" with 59% among "All Critics", but it
> still had a "fresh" rating of 74% from "Top Critics".  Last I checked,
> though, it was down to 44% among "All Critics" (based on 39 reviews) and 55%
> among "Top Critics" (based on 11 reviews).
>
> So this is the first "rotten" film in Pixar's history.
>
> Meanwhile, Fast Five -- the fifth installment of the Fast & Furious
> franchise, and also a sequel that switches genre to some degree (Fast Five
> is a heist movie, unlike the first four movies, while Cars 2 is a spy-movie
> spoof, unlike the original Cars) -- has a "fresh" rating of 78% from "All
> Critics" and an even better 82% from "Top Critics".
>
> But the first four movies in the Fast & Furious franchise were all
> considered "Rotten".
>
> So... this year, for the first time ever, a Fast & Furious movie got love
> from the critics... and, for the first time ever, a Pixar movie didn't.
> (Even the original Cars, which I found kind of boring and even a little
> offensively preachy in places, managed a "fresh" 74% from "All Critics" and
> an almost equally "fresh" 73% from "Top Critics".)
>
> So... what gives?  Do critics genuinely believe that Fast Five is a better
> movie than Cars 2?  Or, are they judging each movie by the standards set by
> their predecessors?  Were the first four Fast & Furious films so bad that
> Fast Five could not help but look good?  Were the first eleven Pixar films
> so good that Cars 2 could not help but look bad?  Etc.
>
> Oh, and for those who think critics don't matter and it's only audiences
> that count, Fast Five has also made a heck of a lot more money worldwide
> than the original Cars did.  I wonder how it'll compare to the sequel.
>
> Another interesting factoid:  The two Cars movies are the *only* movies
> that Pixar co-founder John Lasseter has directed since the 1990s.  He
> directed the first two Toy Storys as well as A Bug's Life, but after the
> turn of the millennium, he let other people direct Pixar films (Pete Docter
> directed Monsters Inc. and Up; Andrew Stanton directed Finding Nemo and
> WALL-E; Brad Bird directed The Incredibles and Ratatouille; Lee Unkrich
> directed Toy Story 3).  When he returned to directing himself, Lasseter's
> movies -- the two Cars movies -- were widely regarded as the worst films
> that Pixar has ever made.  With the original Cars, people still tended to
> say, "But at least Pixar's worst is better than everyone else's best."  It
> doesn't sound like they're saying that for Cars 2, though.
>
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