Dominic (Vin Diesel), Brian (Paul Walker) and their souped-up ride gaze at the wreckage in the aftermath of a brilliant heist in Fast Five, the unbelievable fifth Fast and Furious action film.

Tinkering with the original cast in an unoriginal movie turns out to be a stroke of genius. Elizabeth Kerr reports.

If there ever was an all-star cast for an adrenalized movie about illegal car racing it would be the one in Fast Five, the mind-boggling fifth film in The Fast and the Furious (what a title!) series. The idea that decidedly retro street racing (let's face it, it was glorified drag racing) could be updated and infused with a vague homoeroticism, conflicted loyalties la John Woo and carried to box office glory on the backs of a relatively unknown cast seemed ludicrous. Of course, the film was ludicrous to begin with so it didn't matter. The combination of intensely photogenic actors and fast cars was a formula that indulged our collective adolescent guilty pleasures to the tune of $200 million worldwide. No one knew it then but it was also the birth of the most unlikely franchise with a mystifying level of staying power ever produced. The $1 billion grosses to date put the muscular series in some respectable franchise territory.

Rio cop Elena (Elsa Pataky) and FBI agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) with really fast cars and big guns in Fast Five.

Ironically, the star-making actioner was the kiss of death for most of the cast. With the exception of Michelle Rodriguez, the cast has largely languished in either (justifiably) failed television series or B-grade movies. Even Vin "The Voice" Diesel was reduced to bad sequels and man-nanny movies at one point. Seeking career alternatives, the original crew dropped out when Taiwan-born director Justin Lin took over the franchise for part three in 2006, Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Set overseas perhaps in an effort to juice its appeal, Drift was the weakest entry and the poorest box office performer and it's easy to see why. Bland and far too serious for its own good, the film was missing a key element: Testosterone. Lots of it.

So cue the reboot, as Hollywood likes to say. Lin gathered the core trio once again for 2009's Fast & Furious ($353 million, thank you), proving there was life in the old girl yet. A back-to-basics mentality and a crime-busting element were just the tickets to resurrection and audiences responded in a big way. At that point, Lin and writer Chris Morgan had to find a way to top themselves.

Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and what will be his accomplice in a Brazilian heist in Fast Five, the latest in the surprisingly resilient car racing franchise.

Like Thor last week, Fast Five had an early international release and had already chalked up $89 million in foreign markets before opening to a resounding - and baffling - series-best $86 million at home. What happened? The Rock happened, and we can only hope he sticks around for the next installment (more on that later).

Dwayne Johnson, forever The Rock in my mind, is a new addition to the Fast world and his insertion really is a stroke of genius. Much of the series' continuing appeal is in the simmering, unapologetic hyper-masculine sexual tension that is a by-product of these kinds of films. Walker and Diesel formed a nice thug/establishment dialectic, but Walker lacks the screen presence to truly complement Diesel's cartoon bravado. The Rock, however, doesn't have that problem. Lin and Morgan have tacked on an Ocean's Eleven-y element to go with Johnson's character, and it's this thunderous cat-and-mouse chase that raises Fast Five to classic dreck status.

Don't get me wrong. This is not The Wages of Fear. But F5 knows its role and has no pretenses to anything beyond a good, brain-off time. The setting this time is the slums of Rio de Janeiro, after ex-FBI agent Brian (Walker), his girlfriend Mia (Jordana Brewster), and Dominic And His Biceps (Diesel) pull off a car heist (from a moving train!) and get local corrupt businessman Reyes (veteran bad guy Joaquim de Almeida, 24) after them to retrieve a computer chip in the boosted car or some such.

Han (Sung Kang) appears to have risen from the grave in the nonsensical but thoroughly entertaining trash treasure Fast Five.

Dominic's earlier prison bus escape gets the FBI on their tails as well, led by super special agent Hobbs And His Biceps (Johnson). Of course, like the bulging band of Robin Hoods they are (so long street racing story), Dominic's crew decides to free the masses of the favelas by taking all of Reyes' money in a supremely complex heist that requires the skills of the rest of the old gang: Vince (Matt Schulze, a younger, more hirsute Josh Brolin), Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Ludacris), the dead (!) Han (Sung Kang), and Tego Calderon and Don Omar as the vaguely co-dependent thief types who provide the comic relief. Gentlemen. Start your engines.

F5 starts, uh, fast and never stops-not even for logic. On top of stealing cars from speeding locomotives, there are juiced up Rio squad cars and the most preposterous safe cracking ever. But the robbery is merely filler for the real story, which is Dominic and Hobbs slowly moving into each other's orbit. The result of this little dance is the most simultaneously macho and gay action movie ever made.

Cued like an old western, Dominic's "white hat" is a skin-tight white t-shirt, marking him as the good guy. He repeatedly spouts some nigh-unintelligible hooey about family to

Dominic (Vin Diesel) and Brian (Paul Walker) are reunited once again, this time to take down a corrupt Brazilian businessman in Fast Five.

contrast with Hobbs' "black hat" independent by-the-book attitude. More importantly, the shirts are tight enough to display both their rippling muscles, suitably slicked up for maximum impact when they hoist the biggest guns you've ever seen. When Dominic and Hobbs finally meet it's in a grandiose display of growling machismo that makes you think they may need a few moments alone. The sweaty, huffing and puffing throwdown isn't far behind, and when they reach out and clasp dusty hands as temporary "brothers" you can hear the tap-tap-tap of F5 fan fiction writers the world over going into warp drive. Does it pander to a cross-section of moviegoers? Yes, brilliantly. Is that a bad thing? Not in this case.

Viewers that stick around for the credits will be treated to a hint of what the sixth Fast film will focus on: the return of Eva Mendes and Michelle Rodriguez, whose Letty was killed off in F&F. "At five, we're just hitting our stride," Lin told trade journal The Hollywood Reporter last week, and he could be right given the relatively fresh tone of a stale concept. More of this high-octane manly trash? That's a little terrifying but mostly thrilling. Sue me.

Fast Five opened in Hong Kong on Thursday.

(HK Edition 05/07/2011 page4)