The cinemas are open again, which means the new films that we've been waiting a long time to see are finally starting to arrive. One of those is the latest Fast movie, something I hadn't originally planned to see, but then I figured it's another movie to enjoy on the big screen. Which got me thinking, why not binge the entire franchise before I do. Some of those movies I haven't watched in years.
I kinda stole this idea from a journalist with The Guardian; Tim Jonze. He watched all eight of the Fast & Furious movies in 24 hours, and was changed by it. You can find his article here, it makes for a hilarious read. I'm not quite as crazy he is, I did it in about three days.
This all begins - surprisingly enough - where it all started, with The Fast and the Furious. I was in high school when this came out, so obviously I thought it was great; cool cars and lots of fast driving. What's not for a teenager to like? Although, even back then I wasn't cool enough to pull off snakeskin leather trousers. Maybe you need the machine-pistol to complete the look. Anyway, the movie is definitely not quite as cool as it once was. Although it's not quite as ridiculous as later instalments, either. I'm not laughing my arse off every 30 seconds, and physics books aren't spontaneously combusting.
For the most part it's a pretty standard undercover cop story, one where the cop obviously gets in too deep. Apart from some dodgy CGI the action is pretty good, and there's obviously a lot of fun stuff involving cars and bikes. More importantly, the characters are a tad more believable, they haven't become super secret agents yet. The hijacking scenes are shot brilliantly, even if Vince (Matt Schulze) is dressed like Bennett (Vernon Wells) from Commando. Can you believe this all started with stolen DVD players?!
Apparently, even after purchasing these movies, iTunes still didn't want me to watch 2 Fast 2 Furious. It took me 20 minutes to get the movie to load on my Apple TV, I kept getting that error message: "There is a problem loading this content". What's weird is I could get all of the bonus content to play, but not the movie. Anyway, thanks for that iTunes.
So this is pretty much the same as the first movie, just not as good. In fact, it's probably one of the worst (for lack of a better term) in the franchise. It's not terrible, just decidedly average. Yeah, there are a couple of nice cars - Brian's Nissan Skyline, for one - and there are some good chase scenes, but half of it is made up of some pretty crappy CGI. Then there's the boring villain, although he is definitely evil so at least we know Brian won't betray his cop buddies again... hooray. And speaking of the cops, they're a tad two-dimensional, not to mention cartoonish; one yells and the other's a screw-up. All of which is saturated with way too much cheesy dialogue.
Watching the first movie after all these years was at least enjoyable in a nostalgic way, whereas this was totally uninspiring. I can't even say it was a slog, because it wasn’t really bad, it was just... bland.
Surprisingly - or not, I have no idea at this point - one of the best movies in this franchise is the one that doesn't feature the original cast. Even with its retroactive rearranging/engineering to put it somewhere else in the random ass timeline of the Fast Saga, Tokyo Drift is actually one of the best movies.
This one does get a bit weird at times. It's the fact that the majority of the characters are meant to be school kids - not that they look like school kids - that makes some of their interactions kinda odd, and at times bordering on creepy. For example; why do a whole bunch of them live in Han's garage? At the same time, the fish out of water scenario at the centre of this story is a lot of fun, watching our young hero try to adapt to his new situation.
This of course, includes the art of drifting. All of the driving is fantastic, a lot of which appears to have been done for real. Thankfully the CGI has improved, and more importantly is kept to a minimum. Despite the danger it poses to tyres, however, the drifting is the thing that impresses most. Although I wouldn't recommend it when trying to get away from someone intent on killing you.
It seems we have reached the point where this franchise becomes too cool for the word "the". I haven't seen this one since it was in the cinema, and it quickly becomes apparent why that is; it's kind of dull. The only thing I could remember before the rewatch was something about tunnels. Anyway, the original cast is back and now they're just Fast & Furious. With their return comes what is probably the worst instalment in the Fast Saga. It's essentially a rehash of the original, just not as good.
Brian is inexplicably working for the FBI - not sure how he pulled that off - and is back undercover, which of course conjures complicated feelings between him and Mia (who once again is pretty much watching from the side lines), and Dom's back to hijacking convoys, only with a slightly more explosive cargo. Yeah, that all sounds very familiar. Except this time they're out for revenge, because a drug dealer had Letty killed... or did he?
There is a pretty good street race early on, featuring a rather bossy satnav, not that everyone seems to listen to it. Then we come to those aforementioned tunnels, which really doesn't make a whole lot of sense given the way they do it. I know it says "fast" in the title, but a convoy of cars racing through tight dark tunnels with no stopping distance between them is just stupid. And the fact that it's all CGI sort of takes the fun out of it. That is, if there was any to begin with.
Right, half way through. Things are at least looking up after the last one, not that that's a very high bar. We've reached what is considered to be the turning point in the franchise, where things really begin to change, and the Fast Saga moves away from what it was when it began. Standard sequel thinking has been applied; "bigger is better". Everything has been dialled up, maybe not to 11, not yet anyway.
This is the one where the franchise throws the physics book out the window... into a shredder... and sets the shredder on fire. Oh, and it also does a little transformation into a heist movie. Yep, Fast & Furious does Ocean's Eleven, just without the subtlety or sophistication. That all kind of goes out the window when you drag a massive safe through the streets of Rio, although that part is fun.
Of course, being a heist movie, you need a crew, which means the return (and slight tweaking) of certain secondary characters. So that's how Roman got to be so annoying, got it. But at least Mia is finally given something to do. It also means they need someone to go up against; enter Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson. Yes, the big man's entry into pretty much anything is a good thing, even if he is a tad intense in this first outing.
What I find odd about Fast 5 is that this is a movie about street racers that lacks a street race. Instead they simply hint at it. In fact, this movie hints at a lot of things. Maybe it was a cost/time saving exercise, but it comes across like they couldn't figure out how some things could be done, so they didn't.
Now it's time for things to start getting ridiculous, like really ridiculous. To bring down an elite former special forces team, you of course need a bunch of street racers. But the promise of clean records, and people returning from the dead can be pretty good motivators, I guess. My brain is turning to mush as we speak.
Fast 5 may have marked a turning point in the franchise, but it wasn't necessarily a good one. Before this, the movies were in some way believable (I use the term loosely), but the pressure to out-do past adventures means that our underdog outlaws have graduated to the big leagues. Yep, with Fast 6 not only does Dom become practically bullet proof, but the loudest people in the room - and on the road - become... secret agents (I'm struggling to keep a straight face as I write this).
On the bright side, there is at least a street race in this movie, through the streets of London of all places. Having actually experienced the nightmare that is driving in England's capital, I find this idea laughable - probably more so than a bunch of muscle cars taking on a tank. Although credit where credit's due, the chase sequence in which the gang come a cropper against Shaw's crew and their "flip cars" is pretty impressive.
But because it's set in London, naturally there are English people about, and every one of them is either a poncy, stuck-up arsehole, or Rita Ora. As if the Fast Saga didn't have enough clichés.
After watching those muscle cars take on a tank, as well as Dom trying to learn to fly (I never knew cars made good mattresses), we come to the plane incident, and the world's longest runway. The sequence lasts around 13 minutes, which means that runway would have to be somewhere between 18 to 29 miles long (the longest paved runway in the world is just shy of 3.5 miles long). By the time it looked like the plane was coming down, any potential for tension was gone, and I have been clock watching for several minutes.
Mercifully, this epic chase does eventually come to an end, setting things up for Fast 6 to crash into Tokyo Drift. I fear the space-time continuum may have shattered in the process.
After all that excitement I need a break, so do the laws of physics. At this point you could probably drink the contents of my skull with a straw, which may actually be helpful right about now. Yes it's time to watch Furious 7, and that dial has been turned way past 11! This time around the enemy is gravity... no wait... Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham). He's a man out for revenge, and you know what they say about revenge, it can be really stupid.
Defying gravity - or at least challenging it - seems to be the name of the game here, with cars parachuting out of planes and jumping between skyscrapers. And don't even get me started on that jump at the end. I mean, I have no idea how Dom managed to get that bag hooked on to the helicopter, let alone how Hobbs knew it had grenades in it, and managed to shoot it. But at least you know that if CPR doesn't work, just cradle the patient and talk to them, that should do the trick. All of this so our band of heroes can acquire "God's Eye", a device that can find anyone, anywhere... that there's a camera and/or microphone. So if you're living in the woods with no phone signal you're probably fine. We've reached the point where everything about this franchise is laughable, and I find myself questioning pretty much everything that occurs, between bouts of laughter, that is.
I'm beyond caring about these characters who have become so ridiculous and boring. Although Letty's struggles relating to her amnesia and returning to her old life were handled well, and the movie does make a touching tribute to Paul Walker. I think it's fair to say that none of these characters ever grow. Unless you're talking about Roman, of course, he grows more annoying all the time. In the beginning, Dom was charismatic and fun, yet complicated. You could see why people were drawn to him, why he was the centre of this universe. But in the more recent movies he has turned to stone, showing limited emotion, mostly through grunting. It's a shame to think that we used to see Vin Diesel in movies like Saving Private Ryan and Find Me Guilty, in roles which actually showcased his talents. Now we're left with something more akin to a rock. Not The Rock, no, that's a bit of a touchy subject.
On the bright side, Furious 7 is the first movie to feature Kurt Russell. His playful portrayal of covert operative 'Mr Nobody' is actually a lot of fun. Russell actually embraces the lunacy of it all, making him one of the high points of the franchise.
Ok, last one. Here we go. Prepare for the "family" bullshit to go into overdrive! My brain is gone, so this should be relatively painless... hopefully.
F. Gary Gray is now in the driving seat and the man seems to be aiming for as ridiculous as possible. In their latest adventure our super drivers are going up against submarines and hipster cyber terrorists. With the brain gone, I'm now getting skull ache as it tries to implode on itself. Not that the sub or the hipsters are the most ridiculous things, Fast 8 sees the family heading to New York, and the idea that they could do more than 5 mph in that city is ludicrous. Although, considering the Fast Saga is about driving fancy cars, there's not much in the way of exciting driving sequences to be found here.
But it's ok, Ramsey and Cipher are going to have... errr... a hack battle? Hackathon? Whatever you want to call it, they're going to try and out do each other on computers. Cue lots of aggressive typing and angry, cheesy lines.
Maybe it's because I'm not really a fan of this franchise, but I don't really care about Dom enough to be worried about his predicament. Maybe if this had happened in one of the earlier movies, when Dom was more likeable, things might be different. And if they're as capable as is made out, I certainly don't believe that he's capable (or subtle) enough to outsmart Cipher and her merry band of hipsters.
Luckily for Dom, Helen Mirren is here to help. She's a welcome addition to any movie, even when she isn't given enough to do. Her role in Fast 8 is basically to trigger another of the saga's recurrences; an enemy changing sides to become an ally. That's right, Deckard Shaw - the man who killed Han, maybe - and his little brother Owen have changed their ways... a little. Now they're helping the "family" to become whole again. More importantly, it means we get a much more fun movie in the form of Hobbs & Shaw. Something which is hinted at with some pretty intense bro-mance scenes between Statham and Johnson.
I do have just one final question. It's relevant to this movie and many others churned out by the Hollywood machine. Why do people in movies never dress appropriately for the cold?
Well that's it, I have come to the end of this insane rewatch. I didn't cover Hobbs & Shaw, but you can find my review here. The Fast Saga can only be described as marmite; you either love it or you hate it. I personally don't like what they have become, they were better back at the beginning, when things were simpler. When you're reaching these levels of insanity you need to embrace it, and have fun with it - like Kurt Russell. Instead, the saga takes itself way too seriously, and it all just feels ridiculous. But regardless of how you feel about these movies, the one thing we can all agree on is that they are filled with some very nice cars.
I'm off to find a new brain, or at least to re-animate the old one.
Don't forget to check out my review of Fast & Furious 9.
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