It's apparent here that Fast & Furious is more of a generic action movie now rather than one that focuses on street racing. The racing and cars has taken a backseat (with only the intro, a bit in the middle and the climax having a significant screen time dedicated to races and cars in general) while the plot of how O'Conner teams up with Dom to take down Braga is the main focus. While the previous films used any excuse to showcase the cars and driving skills of the characters, this movie doesn't have enough. After a belief suspending intro, the film's pacing slows down so much where you're wondering when the good stuff is going to happen. A lot of time is spent setting up the inevitable partnership of the two leads but it's not interesting. How O'Conner manages to get into the race in the first place (even though he has been LAPD and FBI for a while, they must have cleared his records quite thoroughly) is a mystery. There are a few places where the film doesn't explain clearly enough what has happened. The reprisals of various actors as characters from the first film was a good idea, as is the continuance of the original story arc.
