The Fast & Furious franchise has become one of the biggest in Hollywood in recent years, but it didn't start out that way. If by chance, you've never actually seen the films before, there's an easy way to get caught up before the release of the new movie next weekend. A new video has summed up the previous seven films, along with a tease for the upcoming eighth, in a video that's not even seven minutes long. If you don't have the time to watch all the movies in the next week, check this out.
A funny thing happened on the way to writing about movies for a living. I've never actually seen a Fast and Furious movie. It wasn't part of my job description back in 2001 when the franchise started and back then the movies were generally viewed as pretty bad. It was only since about Fast Five that the films actually got good, from what I hear, and by then it's almost too late to start, like a TV series that you hear is good only after a couple of seasons go by, getting started is tough.
As such, the new video from Burger Fiction is a decent primer for a franchise I've only seen in trailers and I have to say...wow. These movies are silly, especially early on. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, sometimes silly movies can be the most fun. What's most interesting, however, is the way in which the movies evolve. There absolutely is a clear difference between the first four, and last four films. The problem with the early Fast and Furious movies appears to be that they took themselves seriously. Even in these brief clips, you can tell that being serious just doesn't work. It's honestly a little shocking than the franchise survived into its latter half. Then, magically, somehow these movies apparently become cartoons. And boy to they love their slow motion. It's like a fetish.
As the end of the video shows, The Fate of the Furious will continue the current trend of making live-action cartoons. We see cars getting taken out by a wrecking ball and a submarine chasing cars racing on a sheet of ice. Does any of that make any sense? Probably not. Does it matter? Probably not.
Movies are now my job and as such I will be watching all of the Fast and Furious films prior to the release of The Fate of the Furious next week. I'm even going to watch the bad ones, which I've been told to just skip, because I don't do this for me, I do this for you. Which is going to be the hardest Fast and Furious movie to get through? Let me know in the comments.
