New Poster For 'Fast Five,' Plus Director Justin Lin Talks Franchise Maturity

Faster than a souped up Honda Civic that just hit the Nos, or some equally apropos hyperbole, Justin Lin's fifth installment of the Fast and the Furious franchise, Fast Five, starring Vin Diesel, Paul Walker and Dwayne Johnson, is speeding to theaters April 29. Universal and IGN have just released the latest poster for the film which captures both the action and speed that has made the series so popular. Check out the full image after the break and read what Lin had to say about how Fast Five advances the Fast and Furious films, his opposition to 3D and more.

Once again, thanks to IGN for the image below. Head over there for the hi-res image.

Lin told IGN that one of the big things that separates this film is that Dom and Brian (Diesel and Walker) finally are good friends, which is something that's slowly been developing over the course of the movies.

You definitely will see a growth and a maturing of their relationship to be sure. In the other ones, it's always been a little more of that struggle, and Brian was always trying to catch Dom. Now you're going to see a little more of this brotherhood that's always been promised in the other ones. I feel like that's something that everyone's been waiting to see. And I think you'll definitely get some of that here.

He also talked about how, with Fast Five, he was able to bring together characters from all the other films, played by Tyrese, Ludacris and Sung Kang.

If you follow the franchise you'll be able to link all these characters up through either Brian or Dom. They're all around the world and an incident happens that basically calls for them to come together as one. Aside from being a director, but just as someone who follows the franchise, that's something that I've always felt I wanted to see, all these characters interacting and how they get together.

And though the studio wanted him to shoot the film in 3D, Lin "didn't think it was appropriate." What he did think was appropriate was that all the effects be as practical as possible, especially since it was going to be shown in IMAX.

The challenge on this one was greater than all the others combined because stylistically I made a conscious effort to say we're going to do all this practically. And I think the cast and crew really stepped up. Usually on these films there's only a few set pieces. On this one, you've got a little bit of everything. You have a big set piece on a train where we literally took over the railroad and we were just crashing trucks into trains and stuff like that. I'm very proud of that sequence. And to drag a Volt around Rio. To build a building and crush it. Finally seeing Dwayne and Vin go at it. I'm just very proud of it as a whole.

Read more of Lin's comments over on IGN.

Though I didn't love the fourth film, I'm generally a fan of the franchise as a whole and am really looking forward to Fast Five. Are you with me? And what do you think of the poster?