Snobbery Be Damned: The Fast and the Furious

On The Film Yap, I’m usually the critic talking about documentaries or foreign films or films that nobody has heard of or why “The Tree of Life” is masterful while “Just Go With It” isn’t. One can easily say that I am a bit snobby. It’s not a farfetched notion; it has been suggested before.

To switch it up a little bit, I’m starting this new series of articles called Snobbery Be Damned. At least once a month, I will watch a set of really popular films I haven’t seen before, get a few friends together, enjoy certain beverages and find out what I think.

The first batch is ... the "Fast and the Furious" franchise.

Now when I was just a youth, I thought the first film was enjoyable. Not only did the cars go fast, they seemed to do so in a furious manner. Little did I know at that age, the title was also a metaphor for the drivers. I caught part of the second installment, “2 Fast 2 Furious,” while taking a bus to Washington D.C. for a school field trip. Watching this movie on a moving vehicle seems ideal, but since the bus was not filled with NOS, the experience was lacking, so I quickly fell asleep and did not catch most of the plot.

Several years later, I have finally caught up with all of the films. I am older, slightly wiser and not too much taller. As a boy in junior high, I thought the first film was OK. Now I can maturely say the franchise is confusing.

First, let’s talk about them as a whole. It begins with “The Fast and the Furious” where Paul Walker is an undercover cop trying to take down Vin Diesel for being too illegal with street races and other cool-looking crimes. This ends with Walker realizing crime is awesome, so he quits being a police officer and lets Diesel go.

In “2 Fast 2 Furious," Walker must avoid going to prison by teaming with the FBI to stop some drug dealers in Miami who also love racing cars. Walker gets to bring in a criminal partner, Tyrese, who does nothing to help the plot and gets to drive around the most expensive cars the FBI can muster. Stuff happens, and Walker and Tyrese are still happy being criminals.

“The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” takes a page out of the "Halloween" franchise's book by saying, “Why should the third movie in a franchise have anything to do with the main characters?” I wish I could mock them, but this stale story at least makes an ounce of sense. Random White Guy can either go to jail or go to Tokyo to live with his father where he races cars, doesn’t learn Japanese and gets the girl with the help of his black sidekick, Bow Wow. (Better than digging holes in Texas.) Also, there is this mentor named Han who dies. At the end, Diesel is there to race Random White Guy. There is a lot of drifting.

In “Fast and Furious” — Don’t stop me! I know there was already a film called this but as you can plainly see, this title has none of those puny "the" words to get in the way, thus more awesome — Diesel steals a gas truck in a convoluted way and then his girlfriend, Ana Lucia, dies offscreen in a completely different circumstance. Turns out Walker is an FBI agent again for no reason whatsoever, but who cares? He goes undercover again to race cars and stop drug dealers. Yadda yadda yadda, CGI cave-chase scenes. Diesel is arrested for roughly a billion crimes, but that doesn’t stop Walker from quitting the FBI again to bust him out of a prison van. Oh and Han is here, not dead, so this takes place before “Tokyo Drift."

Then there’s “Fast Five” which Time Magazine called one of its best films of 2011, which is impressive, as critic Richard Corliss is known for his movie coverage. Everybody is on the run and hiding out in Rio de Janeiro. Every single supporting character from all the previous films — like Tyrese, Ludacris, Han, Girl From the Last Movie and other people — are all back for one last job. Seriously, there is no way there will be another job after this. Not messing around this time. They want to stop someone who is evil, so they’re going to rob him silly. Also, the Rock is some sort of police officer who has jurisdiction everywhere to take everybody down. Boom boom boom, everything turns out OK for the heroes ... but there's a twist!

Eva Mendes (who was in the second film) tells the Rock that Ana Lucia is still alive!!!!! Also, Han is still not going to Tokyo, which means “Tokyo Drift” probably takes place in the year 2020.

All of that seems pretty straightforward, so why is this franchise confusing? Simple: I hardly have an idea what the hell is going on in the plots. I used to be a big fan of the show “24.” That show never really made any sense, but I could usually follow this thread: Jack Bauer is angry, that guy is a bad guy, and he must be stopped. Moles, twists, secrets, too many White House conversations and cougars were all part of the game.

It’s almost impossible to figure out why they are racing for any of these films. In “2 Fast 2 Furious," the evil drug dealer guy wants a team of people to race to get a bag of money from a car across town and bring it back to him. If you get back first, you’ve proven your worth. Walker wins because in these movies, the white guy always wins. Tyrese gets second and yet is also brought into the team even though there is no way the evil guy could tell if he was even a close second.

Why in the world does someone prove their loyalty by winning a street race? If anything, this franchise proves undercover cops are really good at winning street races. If I was looking for a CEO for Disney, I wouldn’t pick the guy who could name a princess movie first. It turns out the bad guys in these movies are not only extremely dumb but incredibly bland. I just watched all of these films within the last week and I can’t tell you a single thing about them except that I think they’re bad. The only villain with a slight bit of character was the guy in “2 Fast 2 Furious” who put a bucket on the guy from "Sons of Anarchy's" stomach with a rat inside, then heated the bucket to make the rat claw through the guy’s belly. That was weird!

In every film, the tone implies the real villains are always the police officers. There is such a strong sense of ho-hum anarchy throughout these films. The FBI agents are unnervingly dumb. (They move in on a drug dealer because they have a fingerprint identification, not a facial one. Then they get the wrong guy. Then Walker is blamed.) Every film ends with characters realizing that the justice system isn’t cool and living as a low-key criminal is the right path. If the criminal sells drugs, though, then they’re evil. The only true antagonist in these films was the Rock, who out-acts everyone, and he was some sort of supercop.

The problem with all of these films is that there are no characters. Let’s look back at “24." Jack Bauer, Chloe and Tony Almeida were not great characters. In fact, I think I only liked Tony Almeida because he had a cool name. Yet they were awesome because they got the job done, had some cool lines and killed a lot of bad guys. No one in these films is cool. I keep saying their names are Walker and Diesel not because I don’t feel like looking up the character names. (Mostly). It’s because they don’t have any characters. Walker rejoining the FBI in “Fast & Furious” is so dumb, it’s boring. Diesel isn’t cool. He smirks at everyone like he’s cool without doing anything that is very cool.

At least the cars are cool. I don’t know anything about cars, but the racing scenes are the most watchable, although that's not true of every "Fast" movie. “2 Fast 2 Furious” uses so much CGI and so many impossible camera shots it’s dull. “Fast & Furious” has two chase scenes in a CGI Temple of Doom-esque cave that is really boring to watch because it’s not like the cars can even pass each other. Hitting anything doesn’t even seem to have any consequences.

In “Tokyo Drift," the drifting scenes really are impressive. As the cars slide their way through a parking garage, it’s excused that they keep repeating the same tricks over and over again. During the heist scenes in “Fast & Furious” and “Fast Five," it’s fun to watch because there actually seem to be stakes and excitement beyond Car A being in front of Car B.

If the movies could actually do something that was interesting, they would be more watchable. They had me excited in “Fast Five” when they worked on their big heist. The bad guy has money in 10 different locations at once. How are they going to rob them all simultaneously?!? Oh. He put all of his money in one safe. That’s not as exciting. Oh, but it’s a police station! Yeah, a Brazilian police station; I’m not even sure they have locks on their doors. But wait! The giant crazy safe has a handprint scanner! How are they going to get the bad guy to press it?!?!?! Oh. You had Girl From the Last Movie walk over to him in a bikini and he perfectly pressed his entire palm against her butt and they can magically scan that. What? How did she even get on his lap so quickly? This is Rio; there were 15 hotter girls in bikini in the same frame.

These films always take the laziest way out of every scene and story. They want us to stand and cheer every time a random character comes back onscreen even though they don’t do anything. Sometimes the action scenes are good (like the Rock fighting Diesel), but oftentimes they are forgettable.

So why are these films so popular? It just has to be the cars. There’s no other explanation. They are quite fast. Furious? Rarely.

Grades

The Fast and the Furious: 3 Yaps

2 Fast 2 Furious: 2 Yaps

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift: 3.5 Yaps

Fast & Furious: 2.5 Yaps

Fast Five: 3.5 Yaps

What’s up next? I haven’t decided yet. Leave comments below about what movies you want me to cover. Ones I’m considering for next time…

— the "Final Destination" films

— the "High School Musical" films

— the "Underworld" films

— the "Resident Evil" films

— the "Alvin and the Chipmunks" films

— the Madea films