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Was Fast 5 Really 52 Percent Better than The Fast and Furious? 79 Percent of Critics Think So

By Dustin Rowles | Posted Under Box Office Round-Ups | Comments (16)

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There was very little surprise in what topped the box-office charts this weekend. There wasn’t even that much surprise with how much it made ($83 million), which had the unofficial effect of moving up the summer blockbuster season yet another week. What’s surprising is not the financial success of Fast Five, which opened with its largest weekend gross of the entire series, but that Fast 5 scored 79 percent with critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Is Fast 5 honestly a 79 percent movie? It is the best film of the series, and it does have a few nifty action sequences, including one final sequence that blows the doors off the vault, but does half an hour of well-shot action sequences merit overlooking a bad script, bad acting, stereotypical characters, and a complete absence of plot?

Maybe? I guess? I don’t know. It’s a good popcorn movie, but is that what critics have been reduced to? Rewarding films because they make the fake butter go down easy? It’s not that Fast 5 didn’t have its moments, but if you give that a 79 percent, where have you set the bar? If Super 8, for instance, is as good as people think it might be, will the Tomatometer have to allow for extra percentage points (120 percent!) in order to afford it the appropriate distance between itself and Fast 5. Are we simply asking too little now of action films? Was Fast 5 honestly 52 percent better than The Fast and Furious, as suggested by their Tomatometer ratings? Or were expectations simply set so low that critics were too easily impressed? Is Fast 5 really the fourth best wide release of 2011 so far? Is it really “five times the action, excitement and fun. A non-stop thrill ride! [That] will make your jaw drop and heart pound,” as Shawn Edwards suggested? Or, as Pete Hammond is quoted, does Fast 5 have the “most spectacular and exhilarating action sequences the screen has seen in years”?

Or maybe after five months of mediocrity, critics gave it decent to good reviews because they’re hyperbole was getting rusty. Or perhaps critics have just decided to rate films based on the number of brain cells killed. “I lost short-term memory and control of my bowels! Fast Five is that good.”

Whatever the reason, I find it troubling.

Rio dropped to number two this weekend, adding another $14 million and crossing the $100 million mark. Last week’s number two film, Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family dropped one spot to number three, accumulating another $10 million. Water for Elephants was number four with $9 million, and the Disney high-school excretion, Prom opened with a weak $5 million, good for number five, one spot ahead of the another debut film this weekend, Hoodwinked Too! Good vs. Evil, which made $4.1 million.

What about the other wide opener? Dylan Dog: Dead of the Night? Never heard of it? It opened on 1,000 screens, stars Brandon Routh, and landed at number 16 with $885,000. Prisco will have a review of that up today, in case you want to catch it before it leaves thea … oh, damn. Too late.









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Comments

hey man he was in my face.

NOW I'M IN YOUR FACE!

Posted by: maka at May 1, 2011 11:53 PM

Who gives a shit about any of this?

OSAMA BIN LADEN IS DEAD AS DISCO!

And the best part about all of this is that Osama's death kills any chance of a Donald Trump presidency!

U.S.A.!

U.S.A.!

U.S.A.!

Posted by: Devil Child at May 2, 2011 12:10 AM

Hmmm, the overlords keep eating my iphone comments. Whatupwitdat?

Are we gonna get a 'Prom' review??? I saw the Friday 1pm showing with the sis and friend and it was... not good. We were basically alone so we were THOSE people and talked throughout the entire thing.

Is Aimee Teegarden any good on 'FNL'? She was terrible, is a bad crier and suffered from bangs trauma throughout the movie.

Only consolation: Thomas McDonell's (lead actor) hair. I wanted to run my hands through his hair the entire movie. Seriously, check it out http://bit.ly/frR6rV.

Posted by: kilmo at May 2, 2011 12:13 AM

Rottentomatoes is sort of a false judge of these types of things for one big reason; it doesn't judge these movies based on how good they are (as in, 100% is a perfect movie, 87% is a b-plus or whatever) it measures them based on how many critics gave the movie a positive review. So, if 79% of critics said Fast 5 was good enough to be considered a "positive" review, it's added in as a fresh-tomato thingie.
Here's the problem with this system, a lot of these "positive" reviews aren't very positive, and it doesn't matter. A review by Dustin saying that something was the best movie of all time and everyone should see it is worth the same as if he said "I guess it's ok, I wouldn't NOT recommend it". So, the tomato-meter measures critical populism, not absolute quality. This is why star trek got like 98% or something, not because it's as good as the godfather, but because every critic at least liked it enough to recommend it. So, yea, I don't really use rottentomatoes, you should probably read the actual reviews by someone you like.

Posted by: jack at May 2, 2011 12:20 AM

On an irrelevant-due-to-the-death-of-Bin-Laden note, there really isn't a point to criticizing Rotten Tomatoes, considering that they run their averages based around dozens of critics as opposed to just one.

Why would you be troubled that out of 139 mostly professional people, a good majority of them enjoyed, but didn't overpraise an enjoyable but not overpraisable blockbuster?

Why would you worry that their standards have been lower when many of these people have seen over a thousand movies across all spectrums of quality, and likely have seen a very good to great movie within the past week alone?

Why would you pay attention to what Pete Hammond of all people says about movies? The guy makes Seth MacFarlene look like an intellectual.

Why would this be a particualr phenomenon at all when every human being on earth, including yourself and myself, have several films that most critics think is good, and you yourself think is awful? I think Eraserhead and Splice are pieces of shit, but lots of people with respectable opinions think they're classics. It's not that they think they're good because they have low standards, many people who like those fucking movies have seen more films than I ever will, it's that a lot of people think they're good, and I'm just not one of them.

I don't mean to sound like one of those "well, that's just your opinion" types of people, those people can suck a dick, all I mean to say is that if lots of people with good taste think something is at this level, and you think it's at that, there's probably a very good reason why those people think it's at that level nonetheless.

Posted by: Devil Child at May 2, 2011 12:23 AM

All that Rotten Tomatoes really measures is whether critics gave the film a thumbs up or a thumbs down. A 79% rating just means that 79% of critics gave it a thumbs up, essentially, not that they graded it a 79 out of 100.

A reviewer could think the film was completely mediocre, but still get their review counted as a positive one on Rotten Tomatoes.

Posted by: Joel Murphy at May 2, 2011 12:24 AM

"bad script, bad acting, and a complete absence of plot?"

All horseshit especially the last one. Don't like the movie if you don't, but don't start making shit up to disparage it.

Posted by: oh boy at May 2, 2011 12:42 AM

Deal with it.

Posted by: BarbadoSlim at May 2, 2011 5:35 AM

::does the long-deferred Osama bin Deaded Happy Dance::

Posted by: The Wanderer at May 2, 2011 7:00 AM

Looks like Vin Diesel's still got the shrimp.

Posted by: duckandcover at May 2, 2011 7:38 AM

Way to go Fast 5! Dwayne The Rock Johnson will be celebrating his 39th birthday tonight on Raw from Miami. Should be a good time.

Posted by: Dingle Berry at May 2, 2011 7:55 AM

I tend to look at it this way - does the film succeed in making good on its promises? A movie like Stealth, that had a huge budget, explosions, and took itself way too seriously, was terrible. Fast Five, which had a huge budget, didn't take itself seriously, and had a lot of explosions, I found to be totally entertaining.

Not "good," or "clever," or "well written." Just enjoyable in that Jason Statham, multiple-rollover car crash sort of way.

Posted by: Markus at May 2, 2011 8:16 AM

I can still catch Dylan Dog at one of my local multiplexes. The others pulled the film on Sunday.

But then I remembered my New Years Resolution: don't torture yourself for the sake of torture. And that is why I shall wait until SyFy plays this film on regular rotation in four or five years.

Posted by: Robert at May 2, 2011 8:23 AM

can't tell you if this film was better than the others as this is the only one I saw.So glad I did and I can't thank Mr. Johnson and his extra small t-shirt enough.

Posted by: blacksred at May 2, 2011 8:50 AM

Movie ratings from IMDb, Rottentomatoes, or any such sites are always suspect on credibility. Even some reviewer based sites are a bit strange in their apreciation of a movie. I never understood how one can rate a movie as a 7.6 out of 10. Does anyone? How does that work? "I was going to give it a 7.5, but the amusing use of cgi to sexualize the giant robots from space really earned the movie an extra 0.10 points in my consideration"
In the end, ratings don't matter, and you guys are right in not going that road here on Pajiba. The only judgement that means anything is your own, when you watch the movie yourself.

Posted by: Ozpinhead at May 2, 2011 9:43 AM

another troller review + guyz dont listen those wannabe retarded reviewers from rotten.And yes fast5 is the best movie of the series along the original...so to that guy who made this review if u didnt like the movie then simply S.T.F.U and dont review it.

Posted by: Alba at May 4, 2011 11:30 AM