Superfast!

• (Also known as Superfast & Superfurious and sometimes marketed as Superfast 8)
• Written and Directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer
• April 3, 2015

An undercover police officer goes into the world of underground street racing to join a gang of street racers to infiltrate a crime ring led by a Los Angeles kingpin.

Superfast! is a dumb comedy with heavy emphasis on the ‘dumb’. The jokes are corny and your face is rubbed them like a dog that just pooped on the carpet. Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer look like their aim is for a ZAZ feel but more often miss that. ZAZ at their best made the bulk of their jokes in a way they were funny beyond the time in which they were made even if they referenced something of the time. Most of those in the script are very dependent on the moment this was made.

It is clear something is a joke but too often you do not laugh. Maybe on a rare moment you MIGHT make a noise, but an actual sound is rare. At best a smile. What struck me were the outtakes they showed when the credits rolled. Those were often funny and probably should have been worked into the film. Such a move borders on improv and that might have served to improve the end product.

Not that I’m a fan of improv in a movie. Paul Feig does that and it’s extremely hit or miss for my tastes. While it may have worked in one movie, it completely screwed up attempt the Ghostbusters reboot. Not the only thing that screwed it up but one of many things that it did.

They cast actors to not only mock the FF characters but the actors as well. Sometimes they get it right. Other times not so much. The Brian O’Connor equivalent of Officer Lucas White (Alex Ashbaugh) seems to be channeling a bad early Keanu Reeves in his performance. It feels more Ted “Theodore” Logan than Brian O’Connor. He is not comically out of his depth but just too stupid to live.

Dale Pavinski as Vin Serento is a more direct impersonation but not nearly as comically aimed as White. His performance is more like you or a friend doing a Vin Diesel impression. And that fits most of the performances here to one extent or another. This is a parody film and each actor is trying to mimic whoever they are mocking.

Dio Johnson as Detective Rock Johnson who is a parody of Luke Hobbs is perhaps the better of the parodies but is horribly underused or just poorly used. It is a broad mockery of The Rock and his persona and would have been better served at the minimum by making a greater effort to have Dio Johnson to look like The Rock.

Those cast in their assorted roles do well with what they have but the flaw is largely the material. What they have though is very rough. This was not a bad idea but it needed a little more work. No matter how talented or what you are making, if like Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer you are wearing more than one hat you need a disinterested third party to take a look and tell you what might not be good or what needs a little work. I just do not think that happened here.

As a story, Superfast! tries too hard to be funny rather than setting things up and the jokes flowing from there. Plus it tries to cover the entire FF series meaning it packs a great deal of story in a very short period. It is not poking fun at individual elements but rather going at the films moment by moment. There is so much it is hoping something will stick but very little actually does.

As a parody or just a general comedy Superfast! is adequate, but not great. You won’t feel like you’ve wasted your time, but it may not wind up as something you revisit. Don’t seek it out but if it’s an option, it won’t be a completely bad idea.