... or How I learned to learned to stop worrying and just love cars
With a history going back sixteen years, over which it produced seven films and two shorts, and grossed $3.9 billion in the box office, The Fast and Furious franchise has become iconic. They undoubtedly mean business – movie business that is.
But where would the Fast & Furious be without its loyal fan base? Surely there are dedicated followers to the series who have followed Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his crew, aka his FAMILY, from the very beginning until now, or did everyone just start when the movies, allegedly, starting getting good, namely from the fifth instalment on?
Having not seen any of the movies, I decided to go and watch all seven of them with a completely open mind to see what all the fuss was about. So here were my thoughts or general stream of consciousness while watching the Fast and Furious movies…
The Fast and the Furious
God bless him but Paul Walker is not a very good actor at this point. He was a beautiful man and a great guy, I’m sure, but his acting is painful to watch.
The whole family thing is ingrained in there from movie one so you have to hand it to them for maintaining that theme throughout the series.
Also this film is the least fast or furious of all the movies. It’s so slow in pace, although that car chase set piece in act three goes a good way towards making up for the stagnation that preceded it.
2 Fast 2 Furious
Paul Walker still can’t act but at least Tyrese Gibson is here to bring comic relief.
Also (with reference to Eva Mendes' character) why is it that every woman who meets Brian O’Connor wants to f*** him? Really, women can look at an attractive man and not want to immediately bang him. Yeesh…
Watching Paul Walker do car stunts, like driving really fast while not looking at the road, are really haunting in the aftermath of his death…
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
So. Much. Drifting.
And overacting.
Also Lucas Black’s face and redneck demeanour are really annoying. I’m quite glad they got rid of him.
On the bright side, the action sequences and actual car chase scenes (which 2 Fast was sorely lacking in, opting for more of a cop-thriller feel than action-adventure) are significantly the best we’ve seen so far –you can see why they kept director Justin Lin on for the next three movies. So I don't really get why this instalment gets so much shtick.
Also (this isn’t the first time we’ve seen this and it won’t be the last) why do the girls just dance around the cars as if enacting some ritual to a deity? So weird…
Fast & Furious 4 (aka Fast & Furious - this is where the names start getting confusing)
Yes, it was good to get the focus back to Brian O’Connor (Walker’s better at acting by now, thank the lord) and Toretto (Diesel is consistently charismatic in these movies) but there’s a reason why this movie is the least critically acclaimed, holding a measly 28% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
It branches so far from what the Fast and Furious franchise is about that it’s not even recognisable anymore.
Interesting to see where Gal Gadot got her start though.
Fast 5 (aka Fast & Furious 5)
Look at Dwayne Johnson all trying to act like the clichéd cop. He looks and sounds ridiculous, and that beard and moustache do not help.
Dwayne Johnson’s acting in this movie is the worst I’ve seen so far – worse than Paul Walker in the first Fast and Furious.
You would not get away with that scene where Gal Gadot gets a guy’s handprint by letting her feel up her bikini bottoms nowadays, and it’s a good thing too.
Yes, the stunts get better but the acting and script are still ridiculously soap-like.
It looks like we’re getting away from cop-thriller and leaning more on heist movie here – and that definitely works.
I’m getting increasingly aware at this point that I’m watching these movies on a TV (it’s by not small but it’s hardly cinematic) screen so I’m probably not getting the proper experience of these movies
Fast & Furious 6
Whenever there’s a ridiculous action scene like when Luke Evans drives that tank-like car, and explodes everything behind him, I think ‘f*** yes, this is the s*** I came for.’
Why are there still scantily clad women dancing around cars in EVERY film? Who does that? Who turns to their friends and says ‘Hey, do you wanna dress slutty and go dance around vehicles all night?’ ‘Sure!’
Dwayne Johnson just always wants to nail sons of bitches.
They jump on car hoods in like every movie…
I thought there’d be much more about actual cars in this series. They talk about them in the first and the third but that’s about it.
Furious 7 (aka Fast & Furious 7)
The dialogue is still awful – it’s like a badly written soap. There are so many clichés that on several occasions I recited their dialogue back to them just before they said it.
Also I’m sorry but these are not characters, they’re types (there’s even a scene where that character Ramsey tells each of them their role in the team having met them only minutes ago). They have about as much depth as a paddling pool.
While the cars dropping from a plane like that and parachuting to safety stunt was cool, it left me with more questions than answers.
Also, I admit it, I liked when Toretto drove the car through three buildings – it was a mad but joyfully exhilarating moment.
I was mildly distracted by the fact that I knew following Paul Walker’s death that some of the scenes in this film had inserted him via CGI. I noticed it in the last two he was in but that is it (and apparently there are quite a lot of CGI scenes but they went totally over my head – fair play to the effects guys).
Felt a bit teary at the end, because that is a very sweet, heartfelt and moving tribute to Paul Walker in the finale. It won’t be the same without him…
Overall assessment, I still feel a bit baffled by how these movies have gathered such a cult status but that’s just my own take. The fifth movie is the best of the lot in any case.
More importantly, am I still going to see the eighth one? Hell yes.
