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The Fast and the Furious
Collector's Edition
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Starring: |
Paul Walker, Vin Diesel,
Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Rick Yune, Chad Lindberg, Johnny
Strong, and Ted Levine
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| Director: |
Rob
Cohen |
| MPAA rating: |
PG-13 |
| Genre: |
Action |
| Studio: |
Universal
Studios
(Universal Home Entertainment) |
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Movie: B |
Video: A- |
Audio: A |
Extras: A |
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Summary: "The Fast and the Furious" is appropriately
titled for a movie that's about the high-speed and fast-paced world of
import street drag racing and the furious
drivers who engage in these illegal street races. For a movie centered
about fast cars, it surprising has enough plot on which to hang. Not
only will you be impressed with the fast street action, there's a story
about loyalty, betrayal, and freedom built around realistic
characters. If fast adrenaline-pumping action is your thing,
supercharge yourself with "The Fast and the Furious".
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The Story
"The Fast and the Furious" is an flick about the
high-speed and fast-paced world of import street drag racing and the young
drivers who participate in these illegal drag races on city streets to
win cash bets and pink slips of losing cars. It's a high-stake adrenalin-charged
subculture of add-on import performance cars. When a gang of street racers repeatedly hijacks trucks full of
expensive high-tech electronics (like DVD players), an undercover police
officer attempts to penetrate one of the gangs to figure out which gang is
responsible for these hijacks.
Though the plot is incredibly predictable, there is a well
developed plot on which to hang characters that even feel real (unlike some
other car action movies). Acting
performances are surprising good in this film, and Vin
Diesel's performance is particularly strong in this film. The
visual special effects are awesome in this film. I particularly like
the visual effects of the nitrous oxide boosters, where the film depicts the
power train from the perspective
of a microscopic air particle as the driver floors the gas pedal.
Cool! If you're into fast cars, nitrous oxide-charged excitement, an
action film that's got a real plot, then this is your ticket.
The Extras
"The Fast and the Furious" is released as a Collector's Edition.
As such it comes with the following bonus
features:
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Audio commentary with director Rob Cohen
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Deleted scenes (8) with optional director commentary: In
our version of the DVD, the menu features of these deleted are all
messed up. For some deleted scenes, I couldn't turn off the
director's commentary and just listen to the dialog. There's
something weird here with the menu/navigation system of these deleted
scenes.
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Multi-Angle Stunt Sequence: an interactive eight-angle
view of the final stunt sequence
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Movie Magic Interactive Special Effects: shows the
visual special effects employed in the train crossing stunt sequence
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Visual Effects Montage: for the first race scene
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"The Making Of The Fast and the Furious":
the usual making-of and behind-the-scenes look at the movie production
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Storyboards-to-final feature comparison
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Exclusive featurette on the editing for the Motion
Picture Association of America (MPAA): a gruesome rescue scene from a
truck hijack is cut in a particular way to meet the "PG-13"
requirements of the MPAA
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"Racer X: The Article That Inspired the Movie": read the
original Vibe
magazine article by Kenneth Li that inspired the movie
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Music Highlights: soundtrack highlights from various
scenes throughout the movie
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Music videos:
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Soundtrack spot
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Theatrical trailer
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Production Notes
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Cast & Filmmakers
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Recommendations: of other Universal Studios DVDs
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DVD_ROM features:
Talk about quality add-ons! There's enough bonus
materials here to satisfy most avid collectors of after-theatrical-release
DVD bonus materials. 
Video & Audio
The image quality of this anamorphic
widescreen DVD is very good. The colors are accurate and vibrant, while shadow detail is excellent.
Overall, it's a very good DVD transfer. As with most premium title
Universal DVDs these days, there is both a DTS 5.1 soundtrack
and a Dolby
Digital 5.1 soundtrack. Both soundtracks are well balanced with
aggressive use of the surround
channels, especially during for the opening credit sequence. The DTS
soundtrack seems unusually loud in comparison to the mastered levels for other
movies. It's about 6 to 8 dB louder than what I'm used to. All
this means, of course, is that you would set the volume lower than
usual. In any event, the
dialog remains crystal clear throughout the movie.
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Visit the Universal
Studios home video web site.
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Associated equipment used in evaluation: Sony
DVP-S7700 reference DVD player, Sony
KP-61V45 61" rear projection TV (4:3 screen aspect ratio), Sony ES STR-V444ES A/V receiver, four
B&W CDM 9NTs as left/right main speakers
and left/right surrounds, B&W CDM CNT center channel speaker, Monster Cable M-series S-Video cable MSV-500, Monster
Cable Interlink LightSpeed 100 (Toslink) optical cable, Monster Cable
Interlink 400 MKII interconnects, Monster Cable
Original speaker cables in bi-wire configuration with Monster Cable twist-on gold-plated banana plug
connectors, Lovan Sovereign T HiFi audio
rack, and Sony MDR-V600 studio monitor headphones. Our home theater equipment was calibrated
with the Video
Essentials DVD.
Be sure to check out our Top 10 DVDs of the year
2001 and our list of this year's Oscar winners on DVD.
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