Review of "Fast Five"

'Fast Five" is a loud, sloppy, outrageous, muscle-bound cartoon of a movie. People are probably going to love it.

This is director Justin Lin's third time around with the "Fast and Furious" franchise, and with it he switches gears, taking what has been primarily a street racing series and turning it toward heist hi-jinks.

Don't worry, fans; there are still lots of shiny cars vrooming through the movie at high speeds. It's just that this time the cars and their drivers have bigger ambitions. It's "The Fast and the Furious Italian Job."

The movie starts with Dom (Vin Diesel) in a bus on his way to a life sentence in prison. But, of course, his old partner-nemesis O'Conner (Paul Walker) and his sister, O'Conner's girlfriend Mia (Jordana Brewster), manage to break him out.

Next stop Rio, where the three get involved with stealing some cars off a moving train (the film's most over-the-top stunt), managing in the process to infuriate the country's top gangster.

So the gangster is now out to get them, but he has to stand in line as a special crew of FBI fugitive hunters has been sent to Brazil to bring them in. This crew is headed by Hobbs, played with sweaty, muscle-flexing nuance by Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson.

What will our heroes do? They decide they've got to steal the gangster's money — $100 million. So in a classic but somewhat lowbrow way they assemble a team of specialists, a sort of greasy "Ocean's 11," bringing back characters from previous "Furious" films, most of whom have little to do.

As heist movies go, this one is pretty lackadaisical. The plan devolves into fuzzy chaos, and the entire enterprise is only an excuse for a big crazy race-through-the-streets and smash-cars ending. The auto body death toll here may actually exceed that of "Bad Boys II."

It's understandable that Lin wanted to take a right turn into heisting with the franchise — it gives the series someplace to go.

But heist movies should lock intricately into place, while this one just lurches to its end. Next time, let's have a real plan.

For Diesel, who looks more artificially inflated every year, these films have become his career; this is the first film he's made since "Fast & Furious." The same can pretty much be said for Walker and Brewster as well. These people are literally living off this franchise, so they'd better hope the heist thing catches on.

It probably will. The "F&F" films are all pretty dismal (the oddball "Tokyo Drift" remains the most interesting), but they give audiences what they want: lots of flashy cars, fast scenes, fights, stunts and psychic noise.

You can't say "Fast Five" delivers the goods, but it delivers what it's supposed to.