The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

THE GIST: Teenage Sean is sent to live with his father in Japan to avoid jail time in the US after once again getting in trouble because of illegal car racing. Once there, it doesn't take long before he gets involved with the local racers, who have mastered a whole new technique he knows nothing about. Some of them, however, have links to the Yakuza, the local, ruthless mafia.

After an haphazard attempt at making a sequel to The Fast and the Furious resulted in 2 Fast 2 Furious, the studio apparently decided to throw the template it had out the window, hire a whole new cast, and change locale, all in the hopes of another hit.

While I actually found the third chapter in the series to be better than the second, it doesn't look like the studio was satisfied by the reception.

I consider this attempt an improvement primarily because the script is less nonsensical and opportunistic than that of its direct predecessor. It also doesn't hurt that Lucas Black, playing the lead, can actually act.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I enjoyed the change of pace in this sequel, as opposed to the one that came right before it.

Grade: 5