Amph The Fast & The Furious (Fast X)

Watched Fate of the Furious last night. Dug the prison escape and ice chase/plane assault but otherwise this is the weakest entry since 4.

 

Why is this film even called "Fate of the Furious?" Are the characters particularly angry? My impression is that they were actually quite content, having wealth, their criminal records expunged, and working as freelance special operatives for the government.

 

Dom is pretty Furious because he's shanghaied into doing evil doings and his crew are furious at Dom / the people pulling his strings. Possibly the angstiest entry in the series!

 

I enjoyed the smack talk between Deckard Shaw and Luke Hobbs when they were in New York.

 

Yeah spinning off Hobbs and Shaw would be great, even if it seems to tick Vin Diesel off. Maybe Hobbs and Shaw spin-off could lead into Fast and Furious 9 or move Dom back in the roster and make it more Hobbs and Shaw leading the crew (which it kinda was in this one anyway).

Speaking of which, Michelle Rodriquez has been clamoring for more "love" for the females of the franchise, which is totally legit. And she's probably also up for contract renegotiations so she can throw her weight around. There are more than a few females who kick ass with guys in the crew but almost all of their interactions revolve around the male / mostly Dom (when does Letty actually talk to people who aren't Dom, I mean really now). Bring back Gal Gadot's character from the dead, and give her a great action plot with Letty and whoever Hellen Miren and Charlize Theron were playing.

 

Fast and Femi-9

 

I was thinking -- how awesome would it be for, in the series finale 10th installment, it turns out that that the big, big, BIG baddie behind the events of all 10 films is.....a very much alive Johnny Tran!

 

Heads up, the next installment of the excellent The Rewatchables podcast series from The Ringer that is dropping on Tuesday is about the original The Fast and the Furious! These podcasts are always really fun, even though I still can't believe those clowns called Jaws "the greatest movie of the last 50 years."

The categories they do in each episode are

Most rewatchable scene
Best quote
What's aged the best?
What's aged the worst?
Apex Mountain (a silly, classic Bill Simmons malapropism for "For whom was this movie the apex of their career?")
and
Who won the movie?

Without thinking about it too much, here are my picks for the categories

Most rewatchable scene: The first street race/Dom's victory speech.

Best quote: "I live my life a quarter mile at a time." (This is going to be a no-contest winner, but there are some other good ones. "It don't matter if you win by an inch or a mile...," "You can have any brew you like," etc.)

What's aged the best? Sort of an unconventional answer, but how about the fact that this seemingly one-off movie went on to be the first in a series of ten movies in the series proper, plus spin offs?

What's aged the worst: Jesse's supercool computer simulation. "You should go to MIT or something."


Apex Mountain: Kind of hard to pick any of the main cast, since Fast Five was probably all of their apexes. Mock me all you want, though, but Ithink Paul Walker's appearance in this film would go on my short list for "Most attractive any man has ever looked, ever."

Who won the movie: Paul Walker. See above.

 

Based on this Hobbs and Shaw trailer, I'd say the franchise has jumped the shark, but it's been doing that since day one. Anyway, looks ldis Elba got the some super soldier treatment and found one of those supersuits from the first GI Joe movie.

 

^They know the only important thing in this movie is to put their three charismatic leads on screen together and let them do their thing. Story, believability, characterisation... completely redundant. Johnson, Statham, Elba, one-liners, things exploding. It looks so stupid it might actually work.

 

I actually had no interest whatsoever in this movie (to me, F&F isn't really F&F without Paul Walker) but after seeing this trailer, I'm actually fairly excited for this. The "buddy cop" genre has been dead for over a decade now, and with good reason, since it had become incredibly tired, but this sort of "buddy government agents" twist on the genre looks like it might actually be pretty cool. The cast is basically Cinema's Greatest Badasses--sort of a version The Expendables, but with current stars instead of has-beens.

 

Having watched Cena in the recent Bumblebee, I can't say the guy is Daniel Day Lewis 2.0 or anything, but in a franchise where the thespian bar is Ludacris, he should be just fine.

Still, casting Cena as a "Bad ass" is a little on the nose. I think it might've been more fun to cast him against type as a techie or something. But this is the F&F franchise we're talking about here. Their idea of playing w/expectations is outfitting Diesel in a gray tank top instead of a white one.

 

Nine(?!) movies in, it's probably a good idea to bring in some new blood anyway. Maybe Cena will prove to be a similar shot in the arm as Johnson was in film five.

I don't want to turn this franchise into the Expendables, but a "seasoned" addition might be fun. Maybe a Stallone, Harrison Ford, Sam Jackson, Kevin Costner or Pierce Brosnan as a sage hero or even the main villain. Heck, this would be a perfect vehicle (no pun... okay, pun intended) for Nic Cage as a scene-chewing baddie.

 

Yeah, another addition of that type would be welcome IMO.

The fact that this franchise is nearing 20 years old, has 8 entries, w/a spinoff on the way later this Summer and a 9th film in the works for 2020, is remarkable. Not only its longevity, but its evolution from a nearly beat for beat port of Point Break from surfing to street racing to a sort of Ocean's 11 on Red Bull. I can't claim to be the biggest fan of the saga (I still haven't seen 3 or 8), but that evolution, its longevity and continued mega-success, is oddly fascinating to me.

 

Can Fast & the Furious: The Broadway Musical be far behind?

Honestly, that's not an evolution I saw coming (but I guess that's why I'm not a Hollywood mega-mogul). I can't get a sense of who it's aimed at, but the basic premise and the "Spy Racers" title suggests tweens and teens. Kinda brilliant really, because you can use this as a gateway to wean the next generation of F&F fans. At this point we'll be getting F&F 30 in 2050 w/Vin and Co. tearing up the streets on their Hoverounds. "I live my life a quarter mile at a time... because that's how long my battery lasts.".

 

I hadn't heard that they had an endgame in mind. I just sorta figured they were gonna crank 'em out so long as people kept showing up and Vin Diesel could still squeeze into his muscle shirt.

W/that in mind, the Hobbs and Shaw film shows that they seem to be testing the waters for spinoffs from the main saga, and I can now see them bringing in some younger characters in the next two films to, in effect, take the baton (or is that gear shift?) from the original gang and become "Fast & Furious: The Next Generation" or some such.