Yeah, I don’t think Hobbs and Shaw as characters have a dynamic enough to carry a whole movie. Taking a scene people enjoyed and stretching it for 2 hours... can’t remember the last movie I checked my watch this many times while watching. It was fine, but the banter, if you can call it that, got real old real fast. It really made me miss the old mainline series. I miss Brian.
Yeah, I don’t think Hobbs and Shaw as characters have a dynamic enough to carry a whole movie. Taking a scene people enjoyed and stretching it for 2 hours... can’t remember the last movie I checked my watch this many times while watching. It was fine, but the banter, if you can call it that, got real old real fast. It really made me miss the old mainline series. I miss Brian.
It was tedious.
“Oh, so you hate him more than you hate having done to your balls?”
“Oh, so he’s a wimp. Girly and not manly like you?”
This was funnier than the whole movie and it’s like 2 minutes long.
Some of that was from Transporter movies.
God, Statham was so f*cking funny in Spy.
God, Statham was so f*cking funny in Spy.
Spy ended up being a lot funnier than I was expecting. Melissa McCarthy's character surprised me by being competent.
Tedious is a good word for H/S. It was just that one note played over and over again.
Sounds like H&S is the new Expendables. A premise that's hard to f*ck up, but so joyless in execution it's just a time sink.
I didn't think H&S was tedious, but I went in with crazy low expectations.
And yeah, Spy was a lovely surprise all around.
I thought it was ok. A lot of fun adventure parts but yeah i could do without the toxic stuff and the shaky cam fighting.
So... time to find out what this is all about. I’ve never seen any except the first one way back when. I thought about watching one here or there but I don’t normally like to jump into the middle of a series.
But now my time has finally come, and a local TV channel is broadcasting these one at a time on Sundays, so I’m going to attempt to record and watch them all.
This should be .. something?
Yeah it's a thing. The first is fun. Second is trash. Third is like a low risk side movie that is actually good.
So then the fourth they bring everyone together and make an action spy movie thing instead of just cars. It works, so then they keep upping the stakes until you have cars jumping between skyscrapers, tanks vs submarines, and it's all just awesome fun.
Yeah, it's fun to watch the series evolve, but yeah, the second movie is garbage. Worth one vieweing if you're a completist.
It does introduce important characters for later. But yeah I haven't watched it since it released. I have the 7 film Blu Ray set and will probably never play that disc
Halfway through #2 already, and yes it is awful but I can’t stop now. Will post some thoughts when I have finished watching.
I mean it is what it is just an action car racing movie with some funny points.
I mean it is what it is just an action car racing movie with some funny points.
That’s what I’m here for
For me 5 remains the high water mark. It's the one I watched on a lark and was completely surprised. And the stunts hadn't started looking like something out of Sci-fi yet as far as I can recall.
For me 5 remains the high water mark. It's the one I watched on a lark and was completely surprised. And the stunts hadn't started looking like something out of Sci-fi yet as far as I can recall.
Indeed. It’s the latest movie in the series that’s remotely plausible.
5 brings in the Rock, of course it's awesome. I really enjoy 6, and finally connecting things back to 3.
I love 5 the most yeah, but I love how ridiculous it's gotten since.
Alright here we go.
The Fast and the Furious - 2001.
Yes, that’s the year two thousand and one. This movie is nearly twenty years old. I therefore conclude that I am much older than that.
In the Mean Streets of LA, a team of street racers is also a gang of truck-hijacking DVD player thieves! A bland guy called Brian is secretly an undercover cop who infiltrates the team to bring them down and return the DVD players to their rightful owners!
Will Brian bring down the gang? (No)
Will Brian get the girl (Yes)
Will the team ever car pool to get somewhere (Never!)
Will they win “Race Wars”? - which incidentally sounds like a more horrible thing than it was probably intended to be (No because they’ll leave before it even starts)
Things I learned from this movie:
DVD players are incredibly valuable. I should have bought (or stolen) some in 2001, they must be worth a mint now.
The LAPD can spare exactly one undercover cop to bring down a notorious gang of thieves - but if they hear about some people driving fast they will deploy dozens of heavily armed officers with cars and helicopters to hunt them down.
Dominic Toretto lives his life a quarter mile at a time.
NOS is magic speed potion for your car.
This was plenty of silly fun. Can’t wait to see what the gang will get up to next!
The best one so far: Er, this one obviously
I always thought the series was just silly bad action junk until I accidentally watched the first one late at night a few years back. There seemed to be a lot of commentary on social and economic differences and injustices weaves inbetween the action stuff; it seemed like a lot deeper film than I had expected. I have been hoping to someday watch the rest and see if any of that survived in the sequels.
It does introduce important characters for later. But yeah I haven't watched it since it released. I have the 7 film Blu Ray set and will probably never play that disc
I've never watched the second movie and was fine with the introductions to said characters being made in 5. It might "help" in some sense but you get a good enough idea of their dynamics swiftly enough.
For me 5 remains the high water mark. It's the one I watched on a lark and was completely surprised. And the stunts hadn't started looking like something out of Sci-fi yet as far as I can recall.
Yup yup. Five does well due to the ensemble nature of the cast and the fact that the antagonist is really kind of just there. He's there to provide a threat and an obstacle to overcome, but the movie's heart is with its characters. The Rock is more of an antagonist but he's clearly not the bad guy. If anything, The Rock adds an additional layer of complexity (did I just say that about a Fast and Furious film?) because he's unscrupulous in his job, but he's not a bad guy bad guy despite being a part of the law. It sort of calls back to Brian's position in the first film, only by 5 the "Robin Hood" angle of vigilante good guy criminals is being romanticized so that The Rock seems like he's so lawful he's lawful evil.
Makes it real fun as a character piece, The Rock looked great with a Spock Beard, and the fight between him and Vin was really fun. Six is a good follow-up, but it lacks the same dimension and begins to try and returns to villains that have some level of personal stakes with our protagonists, which I think may be why they feel a bit less fun.
2Fast 2Furious - 2003
Welcome to Miami. The gang is back and ready to race! Except... it’s not the same gang. Who are these people?
Wait, one of them is calling someone ... someone we know. Oh, it’s the boring one again. Brian shows up to a neon and chrome racing extravaganza in a white t-shirt and a white car. Then there’s some CGI racing.
But wait! An evil crime lord needs to be brought down, so Brian and his much cooler friend Roman are going to be undercover cops again. Except they’re not cops. They’re going to move some drug money across town by driving extremely ostentatious cars very fast in the middle of the day. No one will ever notice. They might even keep some of the money by hatching this brilliant plan:
Roman: “let’s keep some of the money”
Brian: “ok”
Will Brian and Roman bring down the crime lord? (Yes)
Will Brian get the girl? (Seems like it)
Will anyone care (not particularly)
Things I learned from this movie:
NOS is still magic.
In Miami, race cars can go around corners.
Yes so this one was rubbish, but still fun to watch.
The best one so far: still the first.
Off to Tokyo next!
I think Vin was too busy being XXX, or Riddick.
I think Vin was too busy being XXX, or Riddick.
Well, who wouldn’t choose to be in one of those highbrow arty movies instead of this one?
I think Vin was too busy being XXX, or Riddick.
If I recall, he also stipulated at the time (with the exception of Riddick) that we wasn't going to do sequels or something. He didn't want to be stuck in the same role over and over with the exception of Riddick because he and Twohy evidently had some big plans (and still do (even though going big is the worst thing for that character, I think)).
I find the dude fun but he really thinks too highly of his acting chops (though I will say, Find Me Guilty was a fun flick outside of his normal range).
I find the dude fun but he really thinks too highly of his acting chops (though I will say, Find Me Guilty was a fun flick outside of his normal range).
"I am Groot"
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift - 2006
Start your engines, we’re back again! Except ... yes it’s a whole new crew again. Even boring Brian didn’t want to be in this one?
Our new guy Sean isn’t an undercover cop, he’s just a Southern boy (can’t place the accent closer than that) in trouble for racing very dangerously and nearly killing himself and others. So he’s off to Tokyo to live with Dad, under some strict conditions:
Dad: “no cars”
Sean: “ok”
4 seconds later: Sean is in a car, racing very dangerously and nearly killing himself and others. But it’s ok because he’s also joined a street racing gang and made an enemy of one of the gang leaders. What could possibly go wrong?
Things I learned from this movie:
In Tokyo, cars can go around corners but they must be sliding to do it. This is 100% mandatory in all cars on all journeys.
You can solve all of the world’s problems by racing.
NOS is still magic and even has the power to defeat the police.
Will Sean bring down the gang leader (sort of)
Will Sean get the girl (yes)
Will any of these kids succeed at school (no, they’d have to turn up more than once)
I... at first this seemed awful, then it got better and better, and by the end I was really into it. Some of the driving sequences had a sort of hypnotic feel, and the last race was pretty great.
The best one so far: Might actually be this one?
Pages