The Fast and the Furious

Collector's Edition

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".
 

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:

• Audio commentary with director Rob Cohen

• 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.

• Multi-Angle Stunt Sequence: an interactive eight-angle view of the final stunt sequence

• Movie Magic Interactive Special Effects: shows the visual special effects employed in the train crossing stunt sequence

• Visual Effects Montage: for the first race scene

• "The Making Of The Fast and the Furious": the usual making-of and behind-the-scenes look at the movie production

• Storyboards-to-final feature comparison

• 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

• "Racer X: The Article That Inspired the Movie": read the original Vibe magazine article by Kenneth Li that inspired the movie

• Music Highlights: soundtrack highlights from various scenes throughout the movie

• Music videos:

  • Ja Rule "Furious"

  • Caddillac Tah "POV City Anthem"

  • Saliva "Click Click Boom"

• Soundtrack spot

• Theatrical trailer

• Production Notes

• Cast & Filmmakers

• Recommendations: of other Universal Studios DVDs

• DVD_ROM features:

  • Exclusive hot-links to never-before-seen behind-the-scenes footage of the film "Supercar Street Challenge" demo

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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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.

Site updated 8.26.2008

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PDA Version /
Mobile Edition

Specifications:

- DVD-Video

- Single-sided

- Dual layer

- Region 1

- Run time: approx. 130 minutes

- Subtitle: English

- Menus: Animated

- Scene selection: Static

- Package: keep case

- 20 chapters
 

Video Features:

- Anamorphic Widescreen

- 2.35:1 aspect ratio

Audio Features:

- English: DTS 5.1

- English: Dolby Digital 5.1

- French: Dolby Digital 5.1

Release Dates:

Theatrical Release:
2001

DVD Release:
10/02/2001

Review Date:
01/14/2002

List price:
$ 26.98

On-line price:
$ 17.99

Pre-order price was:
$ 17.99

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