Fast & Furious

Yeah! I skipped Tokyo Drift! What about it? I'll skip any damn movie I please. I mean in the chronological order of the franchise this movie comes next anyway so yeah, I skipped Tokyo Drift.

Its been a while since I've watched 2 Fast 2 Furious but honestly it doesn't really seem like that's much of a problem. As long as you remember the characters from the first movie, The Fast and The Furious, you should be pretty good with this movie.

Fast & Furious (not The Fast and the Furious, there's a difference) starts a few years after the first movie, I think its five.

Dom (played by Vin Diesel) is in the Dominican Republic with his new crew, including his girlfriend Letty (played by Michelle Rodriguez).

Shortly after his crew disbands and Dom leaves Letty to save her from harm, he gets a call from his sister Mia (played by Jordana Brewster) saying that Letty was murdered. Dom quickly returns to Los Angeles to find out who murdered her.

Also in Los Angeles, Brian O'Conner (played by Paul Walker) is now an agent with the FBI. How he became an agent with the FBI is beyond me as the end of 2 Fast 2 Furious didn't really open up that career field for him, but whatever. Anyways, O'Conner is investigating a drug lord named Arturo Braga. And if you've seen the last films you probably know what happens, he goes undercover in an organization full of crimes some how including fast cars and undercover work.

Of course, Dom does some investigating of his own and figures out that the person responsible for killing Letty is in Braga's organization. And of course, if you've seen the other movies, you can probably guess that this required Dom and Brian to put aside their differences, keep one another's secret and take down Braga from the inside.

You can definitely tell that this was the point where the Fast and Furious Franchise was losing steam. I haven't seen Tokyo Drift, so I can't really say if they did the similar story in that one, but this has been the story for the past two movies at the very least. There's only so many stories about criminal organizations using street racing to compete criminal activity you can do before the story gets a little bit stale.

What I will say is that this movie had the beginnings of what the franchise would be known from this movie on, and that's taking the cool stunts they did in the first few movies and putting those stunts on steroids. Now there's not a lot of those in this movie, but there are enough to make you feel like the movie is just ridiculous, but a fun ridiculous.

Unfortunately, the movie is still in the limbo it found itself in after the 3rd movie and its still trying to be a sort of crime action film but still trying to up the ante on stunts, but not enough to make it the ridiculous popcorn fun. The movie does get a little bit convoluted.

This is also the first movie where the films become less about Paul Walker's character and more about Vin Diesel. And that they actually do a decent job with.

Unfortunately overall, the movie is just kind of a mess. Its the same story they've done at least twice by now and besides some kind of cool stunts in the beginning, the racing is still oddly animated and looks weird and its just not that interesting of a movie. I think this movie is universally claimed as the worst of the Fast and Furious franchise and I understand why. (Again, I skipped Tokyo Drift, deal with it).

I'm looking forward to watching 5 and 6 to see where the franchise actually heads and Furious 7 again with the context of this movie and its predecessors prior to it. But in the end, this movie turned me off of the franchise for a long time and to be honest, if I didn't know where the franchise goes, I would say it has turned me off of the franchise.

But those are my thoughts on Fast & Furious. What did you think? Is it the worst of the franchise? Should I go back and watch Tokyo Drift (I probably will just in the chronological order its suppose to be in). Comment and Discuss below! Also follow me on Twitter @cmhaugen24 in order to get updates on movie news and reviews. You can also send me your thoughts on this movie and send me requests for future reviews there.

I'll leave you with this. This is a video on the mechanics of the Fast and Furious movies. I hope you enjoy it, I actually haven't watched it prior to posting this post, I think it should be good. Enjoy!