The first official image from Fast Five has been released.  The flick is the fifth in the Fast and Furious franchise and brings Dwayne Johnson into the mix.  An article about the movie in USA Today says Johnson's character, Hobbs, is "a cop on the trail of street racers Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Tyrese Gibson and the familiar crew of the Furious franchise."  Hobbs is busy tracking down Dom Toretto (Diesel) and ex-cop Brian O'Conner (Walker) who were on the lam at the end of the last movie.  And he'll be doing that tracking in a Gurkha, "a 10-ton armored military vehicle that looks like a Humvee on steroids."  So I assume that means it goes about ten feet to the gallon.

Hit the jump to check out the first official image from the film as well as director Justin Lin's thoughts on why the series continues to be so popular.  Fast Five also stars Ludacris, Jordana Brewster, Joaquim de Almeida, Elsa Pataky and Matt Schulze.  The film is set to open on April 29, 2011.  Click here to see set photos from the movie, click here for Steve’s interview with producer Neal Moritz, and click here for Steve's interview with Johnson.   Diesel says the first trailer for Fast Five will debut on his official Facebook page on Tuesday.

Image via USA Today.

Lin tells USA Today that the reason folks keep coming back to the franchise is "that it's not really about cars.  I have to be honest: I'm not a big car guy. At the core, Fast and Furious is about family and how to create them."  Yeah, except I'm pretty sure it's totally about the cars.  You're not going to see these characters racing around in Priuses as they go to a family cookout.