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March 28, 2024, 08:46:43 PM

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The Fast & Furious franchise

Started by weekender, March 15, 2017, 07:15:01 PM

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weekender

Frankly, I disliked most of these when they came out, but I have warmed to the franchise the more time goes on.

In my defence, I was forced to watch the originals as they were the choice of the young autistic person in care that I was doing voluntary work for at the time.

Here's my review of the series so far.

1.1 The Fast and the Furious (2001)

Tries to be too serious, but isn't *bad* as such.

1.2   2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)

Tries even harder to be taken seriously, and fails miserably.

1.3   The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)

At this point I have morphed into a film studio thinking "Well, the above didn't work so let's see if it works in Japan[nb]It doesn't[/nb]".

1.4   Fast & Furious (2009)

"This isn't working, let's bring back some of the characters from the first film to see if that helps"[nb]It doesn't[/nb].

1.5   Fast Five (2011)

"Fuck it, this franchise is done.  We know we're crap now. 

However, we do still have a budget, and a surprisingly large one at that.

Let's just go balls out stupid, bring in The Rock, make as many stupid impossible dumb stunt scenes as we can, and see what happens.

Also, if we take out the word "furious", maybe that will bring in new viewers?"

Amazingly, this fucking shit-shambles of an approach actually works.

Yes, it's ridiculous, yes it's camp, yes it's cheesy, yes it has The Rock, yes it has stunts.  It also has a sort of plot, but the important thing is that as a film franchise it no longer takes itself seriously - and that's where it goes amazingly right.  As long as there's a basic plot to follow - no matter how silly the original intent of the villains - then you too can make a great action movie! 

Honestly, I was blown away by how good this was, to the point where I had to tell the young autistic person in care to shut up so I could enjoy the film.

1.6   Fast & Furious 6 (2013)

Utterly ludicrous in the good way that an action film should be.  Takes a bit of the above, and just goes balls crazy with the stunts.

1.7   Furious 7 (2015)

More of the same.  Surprisingly decent filmic tribute to Paul Walker, the actor who died in a car crash at some point during the making of the film.

1.8   The Fate of the Furious (2017)

This is coming out soon, apparently, and I'm not ashamed to say that I'm really looking forward to it.

Van Dammage

The series is just a bit of silly throwaway fun really. The only problem is that it took them about five films to realise that. The first film is a solid rip off of point break though. I've not seen fast 7 but I enjoyed 5 and 6 just because of the sheer ludicrous action set pieces. It really is is over the top action done well.

Gulftastic

I like to imagine what the first would be like if it were set in England. All the 'cool' ones would be Essex dickheads.

Repeater

Watched the first one last week coz she's into Vimto Diesel innit and I quite liked the new xXx. Expected this to be campy lol but it was a bit of a mess. Wasn't actually bad, drifted along without offense and didn't last long. A lot like my

Lord Mandrake

Watched about ten minutes of the Tokyo Drift one, Tokyo Drift because cars drift. Sometimes they drift a bit to the left, sometimes to the right but it's not skidding its drifting. Sometimes in orange cars or even yellow ones. Different sorts of sunglasses they wore probably because of the shiny, shiny cars. 

Van Dammage

Quote from: Gulftastic on March 16, 2017, 07:55:23 AM
I like to imagine what the first would be like if it were set in England. All the 'cool' ones would be Essex dickheads.

The Essex Boys : Range Rover Drift. Coming soon to a bargain bin near you.

Panbaams

Quote from: Van Dammage on March 16, 2017, 10:33:49 AM
The Essex Boys : Range Rover Drift. Coming soon to a bargain bin near you.

2 Fast 2 Basildon

Blumf

4 Pot 4 Halfords : Tewkesbury Drift

Bazooka

Too many bloody speed bumps for it to work here.

Bad Ambassador

I disagree about 7. I found it incredibly boring and actually fell asleep while watching it on a Saturday lunchtime. The flippant tone of the last two, which had made them so much more enjoyable, had been replaced by stoney-faced seriousness, possibly as a result of Walker's crispening. The sort-of tribute at the end was rather well-handled, though, and it felt more like Vin Diesel mourning his friend than anything else.

purlieu

I have to admire their utter lack of consistency in naming the sequels. "What can we use this time that uses the words fast and/or furious?"

Still, they're no Moonraker, are they?


the

Quote from: weekender on March 15, 2017, 07:15:01 PMHere's my review of the series so far.

I'm grateful for your effort in decoding the entirety of this phenomenon here. When something is popular enough to rumble on for 15 years like this, the fear sets in that it's some sort of recruiting agent for a disturbing 'movement'[nb]ha like a poo[/nb] or something.

Thanks to your thorough consumer investigation, it turns out it really is just fodder for multiplex teenagers and those in voluntary care work.

Quote from: purlieu on March 26, 2017, 10:07:03 PMI have to admire their utter lack of consistency in naming the sequels.

It accurately mimics most people's demented inability to consistently name files in some office folder structure. Which is quite satisfying. A multi-million dollar monument to mankind's vacillating ineptitude.

Repeater

Seen the new wan, kinda, eh, badly paced. First time seeing The Rock in a film, couldn't get past him being The Rock, some nice wee lines, mostly awful.

Dr Syntax Head

I watched these as part of Sky's promotional channel and I previously avoided them like the plague. You can keep the sexy glam shit with the barely clad women and guys with t-shirts and haircuts but the car stuff is ace. Being a massive Mad Max fan I'm surprised I avoided these films. I love a car chase more than most things in films. Bloody excellent cars too. Almost turned me off guitars and into a petrol head. Almost.

Edit. I would never pay to watch a Fast Furious film and will probably not watch again because I have Mad Max to enjoy whenever I want. But they were entertaining at the time. Just like Transformers.

Sebastian Cobb

Just dry, gap-filling dialogue being muttered back and forth for the best part of 2+ hours with 2 or 3 chase bits.

Noodle Lizard

I thought even the first one was quite shit, and I was a 12-year-old boy at the time!  Watch it again and you'll see how baffling its continued popularity is.  It's honestly kind of surprising that someone thought this had the biggest potential as an extended franchise - and was right!

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

At a loose end the other day (and me extremely reluctant to see Alien Covenant) we opted to watch the latest one of these. It's as dumb as a box of rocks, but it put a big smile on my face which (after the miserable few weeks my friends and I have gone through) is no small thing.

For all the vehicular mayhem, I'd have gladly paid full price just to watch Jason Statham and The Rock trade insults for two hours.

JoeyBananaduck

I've only ever seen about 20 minutes of one of them when it was on ITV2 or something. It seemed fine - presumably one of the later ones as it resolutely wasn't taking itself seriously. I quickly got bored as I don't give a shite about cars, Vin Diesel/The Rock (can't even remember which it was) and wasn't keen on the eye-candy either but whatever. I don't begrudge there being one big dumb action franchise keeping rolling.

hewantstolurkatad

the Fast and the Furious: Okay really, very dumb but okay.

2 Fast 2 Furious: Really really bad and (iirc) there's some wretched CGI overuse

Tokyo Drift: haven't seen it but considering Justin Lin's involvement I'd imagine there's some merit to it

Fast & Furious: haven't seen, have no opinions

Fast Five: A completely new series really, pretty fucking great, the strong box office performance of 4 gave Lin the freedom to go all out and his exhausting directorial style coupled with handling an ensemble extremely well produced a film that greatly exceeded the sum of its parts

6: About as good of a sequel as you could expect, more of everything. I'm fairly sure the actual pacing and narrative are absolutely terrible but it was entertaining.

Furious 7: Pretty huge drop, I gather Walker's death messed up a few things, led to Statham's role being reduced among other things, but it pushed everything beyond a limit of acceptable disbelief. Going to Dubai (where everything looks extremely fake even when it isn't)  and stunt casting Ronda Rousey (an astoundingly poor actor) being huge issues.