Customer Reviews

Fast & Furious 1-5 - Limited Edition Collector's Box Set [Blu-ray] [Region Free]

5 star:		(104)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Coming in at under twenty quid, this Bluray box set of all 5 Fast & Furious films is a real steal. The transfer quality is great and all the films are top quality discs with loads of extras.

The films themselves are fast paced and fun fuelled, with stunts and set pieces that will blow you away. If you haven't seen these films, you really must.

It all starts with a simple formula: fast cars, fast women and lots of petrol driven fun but slowly the franchise evolves into something more. And by film number 5 you will be watching a heist film to rival anything else on the big screen.

For sheer fun and incredible mind blowing stunts you'd be hard pressed to find a film to better any one of the Fast & Furious films, and this box set is a great way to see them.

Here's my verdict on all 5 films:

Film 1: The Fast & The Furious - 5 stars.
I was fully expecting it to be rubbish but was won over by its energy and sheer entertainment factor.

Film 2: 2 Fast Too Furious - 4 stars.
Couldn't quite live up to the standards of the first film, but was good fun nonetheless, and by the end, I was in awe of the finalé. This is just a film of great set pieces on four wheels and all the stunt team have to be applauded.

Film 3: The Fast & The Furious Tokyo Drift - 4 stars.
The franchise shifts gear and changes scene, bringing us a film that looks great in a setting made for the Fast & Furious films. Not quite 5 stars, but immensely enjoyable all the same. And full marks for keeping the F&F films feeling fresh.

Film 4: Fast & Furious - 3 stars.
Trying to be something its not makes this by far the weakest film in my opinion. And overly-intricate story line means the film veers from the road of non-stop thrill and spills and great entertainment, getting bogged down with a confusing plot. Never gets out of second gear in my opinion.

Film 5: Fast & Furious 5 - 5 stars.
The franchise is back in the fast lane delivering a film that is truly mind blowing in every way. The setting is exotic and colourful, the story is excellent but not overly complicated like if film 4, and the scale and scope of the stunts ambitious.

Not many film franchises can claim to have 5 titles, let alone 5 titles of such quality. Most tend to go downhill, with films 2 & 3 being inferior to the first... in some ways, you could argue that these films get better every time! If there are any doubters out there (I myself used to be one), I say, pick up this box set and see all the films for yourself.

Having read the reviews here I have noticed that people are commenting on three different boxed versions of this film franchise released on Blu ray.
This box set comprises each of the five movies as single disc versions and all come in one box (not individual cases inside). There are also no digital copies / codes or bonus discs.
The information provided with this set is very sparse, and it does not list the special features or extras included with this release.
Personally I am very disappointed with the packaging on this box set, but feel the price I paid in the sale makes up for this enough.

It seems most of the comments are regarding the packaging, and rightly so. What I expected was a 5 DVD box set, in individual cases with a cardboard outer case, as in the second image. What I received was all 5 DVDs inside one case, as in the first image.

This really should be clearer on the description. Since I bought this as a gift for someone else, I'm quite disappointed.

First up, the movies are excellent - this review is just for those considering the packaging (which after all is why you would be looking at the special edition!)
The outer packaging is a strong plastic case that will protect the gem during transport & storage.
The wheel itself is beautiful - rubber type with tracks, and a shiny hub.
The back of the wheel is flat, so breaks the illusion slightly.

Opening the wheel however is why I've dropped this to 3 stars (again - not a fault of the movies, just the casing)
The wheel rotates half way down to open - this isn't immediately obvious and is quite resistent so you may not be certain how much pressure you want to apply.
Take care when it does open - the disks are loose inside on a non-locking spindle so are liable to jump out at you.

Getting to any disk requires removing all disks above it.

This case would have benefited from being slightly wider, with a removable insert that let you access each disk a little like a multi-DVD box.

Fast & Furious 1-5 - Limited Edition Collector's Box Set [Blu-ray][Region Free]

OK, so the box came in, containing all 5 movies (note: at least 2 more movies are to be released in the following years) plus 5 Digital-copy dvd-quality discs.
The main reason I bought this package though, was the wheel-case. It feels quite nice and if you somehow zoom in it seems quite nice too! But I think my eyes played a nice trick on me when I looked at the photos online, because I was under the impression that the wheel was much larger than it actually is.
In fact, it is roughly as big as a simple jewel case (length and width) and inside it looks more like a 10-disc spindle (with nice little thin foamy layers in between the discs).
If I had paid the regular price tag I would feel 100% ripped off!
At around 4-5 pounds more than the "simple" 1-5 collection I think I paid a fair price.
I don't really like all the movies included, my favorites are the first and fifth.
One more note, I copied the 5th movie from the digital copy disc and the audio is stereo 128kbps... I mean stereo is expected, but 128kbps? This is so 90's! No subs on the digital copy either (I don't personally mind that, but some might).
All in all, for a box that contains only a couple of 4,5-ish star movies plus the goods of the collector's edition (not very impressive after all) I gave it 3 stars.

I got the Fast & Furious: Complete Collection Blu Ray at a bargain (20 pounds sterling)for 5 discs with loads of extras. It was indeed a worthwhile purchase as the visual-audio presentation were sharp & crisp. The contents & special features are exactly the same as the US set, except for a censored part on Disc 4: Fast & Furious (where one character gets slammed into the wall and breaks his nose). Everything was fine until Disc 3: Tokyo Drift. There is an encoding error on this disc at the 36min mark (where Sean Boswell emerges from the winding carpark with a battered Nissan Silva. Twinkle walks around the car & shakes his head. Sean looks out). Then the picture freezes with a loud churning sound. After a 5 min delay, the disc will fast forward to the 40th min mark (where Han talks to Takeshi about a deal). So viewers lose 4 mins of movie footage (covering Sean's father lecturing him not to race & threatening to kick him out; Han waiting for Sean after school to get him to work for him to pay off the car damage; and Sean trying to collect Han's debt from a sumo wrestler and gets thrown out of a bathhouse). I wrote to Universal UK for a disc replacement. They replied that it was a disc error from the 2010 batch of discs sent to Amazon UK, but they've ran out of stocks. They advised me to get a full refund from Amazon UK. But I'm ok and can live with faulty Tokyo Drift disc. Tokyo Drift is my least favourite in the franchise and all the other better movies worked flawlessly. Why bother with the inconvenience when stocks have run out? It affects all Amazon UK's Tokyo Drift discs so it wouldn't make a difference if they replace mine with another faulty disc. This is just a warning to other prospective buyers that the Tokyo Drift blu-ray disc from Amazon UK boxsets is faulty. Other than that, it's a worthy bargain for the price I bought.

Films are amazing. box set was a 4 disc set repackaged for the fifth to fit could have made the the last remaining spine/cover to suit and make it look like a proper 5 disc set. Apart from that top notch.

This refers to the five-disc, region-free, blu-ray version, which comes packaged as five secured discs in one blue plastic jewelcase. There is no literature nor digital copies contained in this version. I would have preferred the individual boxes, but I bought this for the films, not the packaging.

Just a bit about the movies: The first one is probably the most adrenalin-filled, loaded with fast cars, racing, and a booming soundtrack. It's hard to believe it's already 12 years old! The action almost never lets up! Paul Walker plays Brian Spilner/O'Connor and is reminiscent of Paul Newman in looks; like Newman, he really does race cars, too. (He owns the Skyline used in the film). Vin Diesel plays Dominick Toretto; the tough streetracer whose soft-spot is his sister, Mia, played by Jordana Brewster, and whose love is Letty, played by Michele Rodriguez. Spilner is the Fast; Toretto is the Furious.

The second one is good, but it pales in comparison. It's all about Walker's character, who is now in Miami, and there's no sign of the rest of the original cast. Tyrese Gibson's character, Roman, is introduced, as well as Ludacris' Tej. Hot cars, hot weather, hot soundtrack.

Tokyo Drift is an almost stand-alone film. Entirely new cast, (with a cameo by an old fave), with Lucas Black as our protagonist. The scene moves to Tokyo, the cars and women are still hot, and the soundtrack still kicks. It's also on a different timeline, apparently, as you'll realize in the fifth film.

The fourth film finds the old gang back together. A little older, and a little wiser--maybe, with Toretto and company still on the wrong side of the law. It's going to take O'Connor and Toretto working together, though, to outwit the really bad guys. The scene is the Mexican border, and the bad guys are drug lords. It's a good film, though not the quality of the first one, but the collaboration between Brian and Dom has consequences for both of them, in the end.

Fast Five harkens back to the greatness of the first film. The characters have other things on their minds, with the realization that they are getting older, but they're broke and on the run, in another country. One last job is all they need to have enough money to essentially 'buy' their freedom--in a country with no extradition treaty with the US, that is! But, this kind of job is going to require a team, and we see characters from all the other movies converge in Rio, to join the gang in pulling off a $100M heist from the man who, essentially, owns everything in town.

But, the've got a bulldog on their tail--Dwayne Johnson playing Hobbs, the agent that the FBI calls on, when all their other agents fail. Hobbs and his team of special forces-types, along with some interesting hardware and vehicles, is hot on the trail of our gang. The thing is that, as in real life, it's sometimes hard to separate the bad guys from the good ones--there are all shades of gray. The action is fast and furious, and the cars and women are hot. There are the usual comedic moments, a terrific soundtrack, and at least two amazing chase/heist sequences. There's also the knowledge that there are two more films coming--and there's a big twist at the end to lead us to the sixth film, due in theaters in May (in the US, at any rate).

I've watched some of the special features--the deleted scenes and the behind-the-scenes FX stuff. Justin Lin, who directed several of the films, prefers real action to CGI, and it's pretty cool watching how they actually created some of the best sequences in the films. There is no listing in the box to tell you what's on each disc, as far as the special features go, so just be sure to check out the menus on the individual discs.

EDIT: I thought I'd update this review with a bit of information just released this week.
In an article/interview in Entertainment Weekly magazine, it was stated that we should consider films 1, 2, and 4 as the first trilogy in the series; and films 5, 6, and 3 (Tokyo Drift) as the second trilogy, with film 7 (coming next year) tying the whole thing together. It was the first I had read about this grouping of films, so I wanted to share that with those interested in buying this set.

This box set was bought because i don't own any of the movies and i've only seen them in the cinema or on TV.
And what can i say for £12 + free shipping you get all 5 movies on Bluray and also you get digital copies so you can download and copy it to different devices and unlike "UV (ultra violet copies" they also work with Itunes and unlike most unlike most re-boxed box sets it still features all the special features the original versions had.
My only issues is the same as many others the 5th movies has been added and the spine doesn't look right with the others all made up the same, but its hardly a deal breaker for the bargain price of £12.

This a very good pack of movies. 4 out of 5 comes in multilanguaje Spanish, Italian, English, German and French. But the last one just in English. Good image quality I recommend it!