The Fast and the Furious: Collector's Edition (2001) |
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The Fast and the Furious: Collector's Edition (2001) |
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| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Action |
dts Trailer-Piano Menu Animation & Audio Audio Commentary-Rob Cohen (Director) Featurette-Making Of Notes-Racer X-The Article That Inspired The Movie Featurette-Editing For The Motion Picture Association Of America Multiple Angles-Final Stunt Sequence Featurette-Interactive Special Effects Storyboard Comparisons-2 Deleted Scenes-8 +/- Director's Commentary Featurette-Visual Effects Montage Music Video-Furious-Ja Rule featuring Vita and 01 Music Video-POV City Anthem-Caddillac Tah Music Video-Click Click Boom-Saliva Music Highlights Production Notes Biographies-Cast & Crew Theatrical Trailer DVD-ROM Extras |
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| Rating | ? | ||
| Year Of Production | 2001 | ||
| Running Time | 102:29 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | RSDL (74:47) | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Programme | ||
| Region Coding | 2,4 | Directed By | Rob Cohen |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Sony Pictures Home Entertain |
Starring |
Vin Diesel Paul Walker Jordana Brewster Matt Schulze Michelle Rodriguez |
| Case | ? | ||
| RPI | $36.95 | Music | Brian Taylor |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) English dts 5.1 (768Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0  (192Kb/s)
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 2.35:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 2.35:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
English English Audio Commentary Hindi |
Smoking | Yes, Mostly smoking tyres |
| Annoying Product Placement | Yes, all over the cars and throughout movie | ||
| Action In or After Credits | Yes, 30 second scene after end of credits | ||
The Fast And The Furious is director Rob Cohen's third major feature film, after The Skulls and Daylight. Although he originally made his name directing TV series episodes (Miami Vice and Thirtysomething) he seems to have made the transition between the small screen and the silver screen with some mixed results (depending on your idea of quality of course). With The Fast And The Furious though, he's actually managed to take a little known subculture and create a bit of a gem in the rough with a fairly reasonable and watchable movie the result.
The first thing you realise about this movie is that the plot is fairly thin, with some dubious subplots. Okay, so you must suspend your disbelief, but that's the nature of movie making these days it seems. The story was based around an article in a newspaper about illegal street drags which was extended into an entire movie. As you might expect, you can drive a hotted up car through some of the plot holes, but who cares? If you are into cars, music, good looking women, speed and some amazing special effects with a raucous soundtrack, forget the rest of this synopsis and grab the disc, as you won't be disappointed.
The opening of the movie looks good. A truck, despatched with all sorts of loosely stacked goodies (DVDs and other electrical appliances) is hijacked in the opening few minutes by three Hondas (?) driven it seems by total lunatics. The stunt work is great, the believability a little less so. From this point on, you should be able to work out the entire plot. It took me all of about fifteen minutes to guess what was going on, so if you want to work it out, stop reading now and wait for the movie.
Cut to Brian (Paul Weller), our hero (with a very spurious set of morals as you will discover) testing out his car in a parking lot and nearly losing it. Brian we find out works for a local auto spares and accessories store as a salesman/storeman. He also happens to like tuna fish sandwiches (no crust) and has begun hanging out at a shop owned by the local and uncrowned king of the illegal street drags, Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel). Of course the fact that his sister Mia (Jordana Brewster) works there and is a total babe is of minor consequence naturally.
When Vince (Matt Schulze), one of Toretto's gang, who also has the hots for Mia arrives, there is a stand-up confrontation with Brian who is chased off with a warning. It's about this time you'll begin to get a feeling there is something going on here, especially when Brian drops into work and orders up a whole swag of NOS (Nitrous Oxide System, aka Nitro) for his car (at about $10k) without batting an eyelid and ends up that night at an illegal street drag challenging Toretto and a couple of other hotshots, betting his car in order to cover the $2000 side bet. For the next five or six minutes, just hang onto your socks and crank your system for one of the best surround sound experiences you are going to hear in a long time as the cars are let loose on a ten second ride that lasts over three minutes and is too short at that. Cohen and his CGI crew do a great job on this one.
Anyway, after the race the police rock up to bust up the party and Toretto is their prime target. Barely escaping and dumping his car in a safe location, he's spotted by the police and aided by Brian who then are chased all over the city until ending up being 'escorted' by the Chinese connection lead by Johnny Tan (Rick Yune) to one of their factories under the threat of machine guns. After having his car totalled by machine gun fire from Tan and his cohorts, Brian and Dominic head back to town where Brian begins his relationship with Mia and he and Vince once again collide, but there is plenty more action to come, naturally.
I've heard a few people say that CGI can't make a movie. Well, in this case it almost succeeds since where the dialogue and story development fail, you are copiously compensated with a driving soundtrack and some excellent stunt work plus CGI out the kazoo. This is one of those movies where you just have to sit back, crank it up and let it rip. This is no Citizen Kane but if you have the equipment, you are in for the ride of your life.
As a general rule, more recent movies sport better transfers and this is absolutely no exception being one of the best transfers I've experienced in quite a while. Overall this would have been a reference disc in regards to video but it has just got enough little transfer glitches to miss out on the ultimate accolade.
The original theatrical release had an aspect ratio of 2.39:1. This transfer is close enough at 2.35:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.
Superbly sharp is the only way to talk about this transfer. There is no edge enhancement at all and it really shows. The shadow detail is magnificent with bucketloads of background detail on show, even during the darker night shots. Grain is so minor that at 61:26 I noticed some slight grain in a stock shot which is the first time during the movie I even saw any! Forget low level noise, this is just one of the best transfers I've seen in a long time, in keeping with the excellence overall of the package.
Brilliant colours dominate this movie, especially for the cars. A lot of the action takes place at night so there is a lot of delineation in the colour schemes. Overall, no complaints as everything looked totally realistic, even the CGI and matting was excellently integrated. There was no sign of bleed and saturation again was mostly confined to the cars, but they can handle it nicely. Skin tones were very natural.
No MPEG artefacts were on notice here. Occasionally, some of the motion was jerky but that was inherent in the movie. There is a black mark towards the top left of the screen at 33:18 and some slight break-up at 38:15 on a radiator grille. There is also some slight shimmering at 54:45 on some window slats and during Race Wars some of the pan shots of the cars exhibit very slight aliasing, but only momentarily. Like I said at the start, a five star effort with only minor (and me being very picky) errors.
I'd have been lost at times without the subtitles. I got lost in a lot of the street/racing talk and they were invaluable. Basically, the bottom eighth of the screen is where they live. They are presented in an easy to see font and they were very accurate for the most part with only the usual condensing for the sake of brevity.
A bad layer change is probably the worst problem with this whole transfer. It occurs at 74:47 during Chapter 15 in a transition scene. A cut to reading a road map and a big change in audio marks the spot. In addition, there is a noticeable pause.
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I have rarely come across a better soundtrack since I bought my system and this disc is one that really makes it all worth while. There are two soundtracks on this disc dedicated to the movie and one to the audio commentary. All three are in English only. The usual Dolby Digital 5.1 track is here at 384 kilobits per second. There is also a vastly superior DTS 5.1 track at a bitrate of 768 kilobits per second and rounding it all out is the audio commentary at 192 kilobits per second in Dolby Digital 2.0. I watched the movie both in Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS modes as well as listening to the audio commentary.
The first thing to note is that the Dolby Digital 5.1 track is very good with a solid overall feel to it. There is a robust envelope developed from the surrounds and the subwoofer works constantly with the driving beat of the music. For those of you without a DTS decoder, this is an excellent soundtrack. The DTS soundtrack, on the other hand, was encoded at a slightly higher sound level (about +5db) but even after level matching you can tell the difference. The higher bitrate of the DTS track gives it substantially more bottom end with a real subterranean rumble that is constantly in play. The surrounds also thrive with a much sweeter sound and the envelope developed is much more robust. Comparing the two side-by-side, the DTS track wins out in my estimation but in either format this soundtrack is of reference quality.
Neither the dialogue nor the audio sync were a problem.
The music for this movie is an absolute winner. I consider this one of the best soundtracks I've heard in a long time and it never lets up. Most of the music is snippets from songs from various bands augmented by additional linking music from Brian Tyler. Music from bands such as Limp Bizkit, Santana, Ja Rule, Dope, Saliva and plenty of other hard core rock and rap bands are constantly on offer during the entire movie.
The sounds of cars racing by at high speed, a pulsing beat from the music and every manner of special effects cut into the rears is a joy to listen to. The overall sound of this movie just encompasses you and adds layer upon layer until you are surrounded with a wall of sound during big chunks of the movie, especially any time there are cars racing (which makes up a decent slice of the movie).
A driving beat is matched by a constantly active subwoofer, including some amazing subterranean rumblings when the cars are in full throaty roar that have to be felt to be believed. I can't remember a more stirring use of the .1 channel in a long time and this one is five star all the way.
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2.35:1 letterboxed, not 16x9 format. This is the title track Furious by Ja Rule featuring Vita and 01. With a running time of 4:09, this includes excerpts from the movie. Clean and very watchable, if you are into rap music.
Next, the read me file mentions that you need a P2/AMD 400MHz or better/64Mb RAM/Windows+IE4/SP2. When you finally load the software you get a different menu and new animation. There is a musical overlay which can be changed to any of 5 different tracks from the movie. Problem is they loop about every 20 seconds and get tiring very fast. Fortunately, you can turn them off. The centre panel contains 4 cars which you can mouse-over and get details on. To the right is a picture of Vin Diesel saying 'lets go for a little ride'. All of this is in Javascript from the looks of it. If you get any script errors loading you'll probably need to update IE. A game called Street Racer can be played from the menu. You have a choice of 4 cars and you can do a little dragging if you please. Fairly primitive, but if you expect Grand Turismo 3 or something, buy a Playstation2! Finally, there are interactive links to Universal's web site if you wish to avoid typing.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
From the looks of it, both the Region 1 and Region 4 discs look precisely the same. Therefore, it would be buyer's choice on your preferred purchase.
The Fast And The Furious does not have the most fulfilling of stories but this is one disc that has everything else. Yes, the characters tend to be a bit too good looking and the cars are really the heros, but who cares - this is a rocket-ride worth the trip.
The video is exceptionally good with little to detract from it.
The audio is beyond good. It is highly aggressive and a five star treat for those of you with high quality equipment. A definite purchase on this front alone.
Apart from chock-a-block 2 disc editions, this has the best set of extras I've ever seen. Worth buying the disc for these alone and in keeping with a great DVD.
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| Extras | |
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Loewe Xemix 5006DD, using RGB output |
| Display | Loewe Xelos (81cm). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Rotel RSP-976. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | Rotel RB 985 MkII |
| Speakers | JBL TLX16s Front Speakers, Polk Audio LS fx di/bipole Rear Speakers, Polk Audio CS350-LS Centre Speaker, M&KV-75 Subwoofer |