A closer look
Fast Five director Justin Lin practically refused to use computer graphics for the climactic sequence where two muscle cars drag a massive bank vault through the streets of Rio, opting instead to build an actual motorized steel box and smash it into real concrete structures. The production team constructed a drivable vault shell mounted on a truck chassis, putting a stunt driver inside the metal cube so he could wildly steer it into fake storefronts while Vin Diesel pretended to pull it with a Dodge Charger. In an era where most blockbusters just paint everything in a sterile green-screen room, there is something profoundly beautiful about a studio spending millions of dollars just to legally demolish a city block with a giant, weaponized metal rectangle. It perfectly captures the charmingly meatheaded ethos of the entire franchise, aggressively rejecting sophisticated digital artistry in favor of just throwing heavy cars at brick walls until the footage looks cool
