May 15 - May 21
Fast 1 - Fast 10 [I can’t believe I did this to myself.]
"Family family family. I'm in yo face, family family. Family.”
- The Fast and the Furious [2001] - 43
The opening act of the saga, it would be interesting to be able to experience the original film when it was relevant. In 2023, it's pretty miserable unless you like to hear Paul Walker say "bro".
- 2 Fast 2 Furious [2003] - 36
I'm not sure this one was any good even when it released. Introducing Tyrese Gibson as Walker's co-star, the series attempts to establish some form of running comedy, but mostly fails. Featuring even more meaningless, empty scenes than the first film, 2 Fast could have been edited down to a single trailer and made just as much sense.
- The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift [2006] - 56
Popularly the least reviled of the series, Tokyo Drift marks where the series begins to truly come off the rails. Considering the idiotic antics of 2 Fast, that's a big ask. Concluding with the acceptance by the Yakuza, Tokyo Drift, like many of the other entries into the series, could have been totally interesting... If only half the cars weren't rendered by a computer.
- Fast and Furious [2009] - 63
Oh boy. Following the popularity of Sung Kang's character, Han, from the previous film, Fast and Furious decides that killing him was a mistake and the series begins its long running gag of retconning character deaths... This time by deciding that the 4th film in the franchise should be a prequel. They also kill off Letty [Michelle Rodriguez] which will lead to my favorite moment in all of the Furious Franchise. This one isn't awful like some other entries, but it is still entirely lacking.
-Fast Five [2011] - 76
And here we have something very strange... Fast Five is actually pretty good? It's just The Italian Job but featuring the Fast crew... and with some added silliness. If you don't mind that though, 2011's entry into the series is pretty solid as a self-aware -- and often intentionally funny -- action heist film.
- Fast and Furious 6 [2013] - 54
Ugh... Then they try and double down on everything that worked in 5. They try to be funnier, more over-the-top, and become closer to James Bond films than they do films about street racers. While most of the previous antics have been pretty unbelievable and plots have been almost entirely absent, F6's insistence that it's anything but completely idiotic is what makes it so miserable to watch. Oh yeah... They also bring back Letty because she wasn't actually killed... she just lost her memory, and they kill Gisele [Gal Gadot] who is Han's love interest. Then, in a post-credits scene, they introduce the villain for F7 by showing how he orchestrated Han's death [Tokyo Drift], bringing the series back up to the present...
- Furious 7 [2015] - 46
There is so much nonsense that happens in this one, to include The Rock firing a minigun that was previously attached to a drone, the characters truly becoming secret agents, and Vin Diesel's excellent line, "Thing about street fights? The street always wins," which he utters just before Hulk-stomping the ground, causing it to collapse. While not the worst film in the series in terms of entertainment, it is definitely one of the stupidest.
Conversely, this is also the film that feature's a tribute/ farewell to Paul Walker... and that farewell is truly, truly excellent.
- The Fate of the Furious [2017] - 63
And then they turn around and make another horrid spy-style film. Though one of the less stupid and more entertaining of the series, F8 is still not quite entirely honest about the fact that nothing and no-one in these movies matters and it's all made up as they go. It also reveals that Dom [Vin Diesel] has a son. To reconcile this with their traditional-family-values audience given that the son is not mothered by Dom's longtime lover, Letty... they just kill the kid's mom to keep things simple 🙂. It's the most hilariously transparent moment of "we don't know how to make this compelling" in the entire franchise. Also they somehow convinced Oscar award winning actress Charlize Theron to be in it? I think she might have also been the villain in 7… I can’t remember anymore. These are awful.
-Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw [2019] - 59
Though this one has a lower rating than F8, this spinoff could really have been fun. Instead, they just made a very lazy, zero brain, sex-appeal action film. The Rock, Jason Statham, Idris Elba, and Vanessa Kirby fight, run, drive, and shoot in various forms of wet, shirtless, and bloody for 2+ hours. If the script was smarter... What's not to love?
- F9: The Fast Saga [2021] - 40
Holy-absolute-moley. If I hadn't already been tired of this franchise, this would have done it. This film is so idiotic and also boring that it's barely even palatable. "Jumping the shark" doesn't even begin to describe the antics and general stupidity of F9. While most of the films are silly, F9 is one of the only ones that consistently breaks its own rules for the sake of the "plot". Don't subject yourself to this one. Oh, John Cena is also here now. He's Dom's brother... who we've never mentioned in the last 8 films. Oh again, they bring Han back... again.
- Fast X [2023] - 29
There's so many words to share about this nightmare of cinema. If it were to come out that this was the first film written by an AI, I would be entirely unsurprised and also somewhat relieved. Fast X is such a horrific mishmash of tired plots, forgettable scenes, and unbelievable situations that there is nearly 0 entertainment value in the entire "film". It literally feels like one of those "I forced a bot to watch 10,000 hours of y-thing then had it write a script" memes. It's thinly veiled "ha ha, the godless woke soy-boy is the villain" schtick doesn't really help its case. This is, shockingly, the worst of the series by far. Adding to the shenanigans, they bring back Gisele... because nobody in the Fast universe is ever truly gone.
