These were Facebook posts I made as minor reviews of the Fast and Furious movies. They were much more off-the-cuff than the music reviews. My review for Furious 7 was eaten by Facebook, and it absolutely killed the momentum that I had built up. I will go back and review the final movies soon, though, so keep an eye on this page!

The Fast and the Furious (2001):

I guess I'm going on a journey. I've heard too many people whose opinions I respect talk about the Fast and the Furious franchise positively to ignore it. I know it "gets better" in the later movies, but I want to start from the start.

Overall, the first one was a somewhat forgettable early 2000s action schlock movie. Paul Walker (rip) is god awful. His acting in this was on par with his acting in Tammy and the T-Rex. The movie was carried by Vin Diesel and car porn. Kinda reminded me of Hackers,  replacing the computers with cars.

On to 2 Fast!

2 Fast 2 Furious:

Yeah, that wasn't as good as the first one. I really hope that Paul Walker gets better as an actor. I was also right that Vin Diesel was one of the two things that carried the first movie. The car porn and Tyrese weren't enough to make this movie good.

I liked Luda, the return of Agent Bilkins, and the big trick at the end was fun, but that was about it on the bright side. The movie reeked of early 2000s "attitude" and flash, but it was a watered down Miami Vice with a worse lead.

Tomorrow, I head to Tokyo and hopefully fall in love with Han.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift:

There is no way that this movie was originally a Family Franchise movie. That said, it was entertaining if not formulaic. It definitely lives up to the franchise name by having a bland, poorly acted leading character supported by a much more interesting cast.

First things first, the "high schooler" main character in this movie was played by a 23 year old who looked and sounded at least 30. It was so distracting that it became humorous. Pretty sure the movie was in on the joke when characters commented on him being underage and that he was going to be "tried as an adult" for his crimes.

Poorly cast lead aside, I was amused by the fact that the plot involved punishing a kid by sending him to live in Tokyo. It really felt like the stakes were ridiculously low the whole film. One of the main early conflicts was solved by just... leaving the source of the conflict. Boom. Easy. I'm honestly not even sure what this movie was trying to say. But hey, it was pretty.

The supporting cast (read: Han and Takashi) were really what made this movie. Han was fun and Takashi was a dick and I feel like the whole movie was supposed to be about them, then they had to shove some gaijin in there to appeal to gaijin. Makes me want to watch Better Luck Tomorrow. Or maybe re-watch it. I feel like I saw it a long time ago.

Oh, the driving was fun too. Got kinda bored with the drifting by the end, if I'm being honest, though.

All right, time to prepare myself for 4ast 4nd 4urious 4. Gonna miss you, Han.

Fast and Furious (2009):

Well Furious Fourge was not fun. I think charmless is the word I'm looking for. It falls squarely into the bleak, gritty, cynical late 2000s thing that so much pop culture fell victim to. It was kind of fun at the start and at the end, but the middle was such a slog that if I didn't know that the movies get fun again, I would be finishing the journey here. Happy to see Han for a hot second, though.

Edit: I forgot to say that Paul Walker is not terrible in this one. Good for you, Paul! I look forward to seeing him improve, hopefully.

Probably going to take the next few days off. I have things to do. Hope you've enjoyed this little journal of my Quick and Angry journey so far.

Fast Five:

I lied, I didn't have anything to do tonight.

The increasingly bewildering naming convention pt. 5 was definitely the best of them so far. It was a fun heist flick with an amusing ensemble cast that was further brightened by the addition of Dwayne the Dwayne Dwaynson.

We're definitely veering hard into the speculative fiction realm now. Physics are simply a suggestion, and you know these bad boys and girls don't listen to suggestions. I think I appreciate the returning cast more having watched from the start than if I had started with, say, Fast Fourious. Paul Walker is fine now that the weight of the movie isn't solely on his shoulders. He's free to smile and say "shit" as much as he wants now that he's got his Family with him.

An odd quirk of my viewing experience was that for some reason the version on Peacock had Spanish subtitles when people spoke in Portuguese and no subtitles for the people speaking Spanish. With my piss-poor Spanish comprehension and some context clues, I don't think I missed much, though.

Anyway, I liked it. It was a little long, but a lot of fun. Time for some Furious 6 (Jesus, why can't they stick to any sort of convention? They could have at least named it Furious Six to compliment Fast Five). Only * checks notes * FIVE MORE MOVIES HOLY HELL WHAT HAVE I DONE

Furious 6:

Fantastic. I mean, it's still trash, but it's fun trash! What impresses me is the continuity. Somehow this stupid franchise has gone from a small FAMILY of car enthusiasts/DVD player thieves to international do-gooders and it all makes sense (given the internal logic of the universe that they live in).

This movie somehow got the best performances of pretty much everyone in the cast. The action was fun, the set pieces were fun, and everything was dumb as bricks. The cargo plane sequence kind of reminded me of the opening of Saints Row: The Third, but on the ground (for the most part). I think that Tej might be my favorite character from these movies.

Don't have much else to say other than I'm curious about what they name the seventh damn movie in the Family Franchise.

The movie was also a bit too long. Over 2 hours is getting egregious. I really hope this isn't a trend.