I’m totally gonna get a lot of flack for this post
Let me preface this whole post by saying that I do wish there were more original films in wide distribution. We do have some great art-house releases every now and then (I just saw a matinee of Mud – a modern day Tom Sawyer Lionsgate release) but from the month of May to August there are probably only three or four movies being released that aren’t adaptations, sequels, or reboots. Hell Man of Steel is a reboot of an adaptation of comic book. But we’re all pretty much used to this, and the films they create aren’t necessarily always bad, some of them are damn near masterpieces (Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight) but it is popular to say that franchises get annoying, and there isn’t one any more lauded than the Fast and the Furious franchise. When the original The Fast and the Furious came out it seemed like the very definition of a one-off B movie, but somehow, twelve years later here we are and I’m actually quite excited.
- Why, though? Another sequel to a very unoriginal franchise? Well it wasn’t made to be original. The F&F movies are just fun action movies that has actually gone on to reinvent itself in the last few movies. I’d argue that Fast Five was a better heist movie than the remake of The Italian Job.
- Ugh, but that cast… Think about this, what other mainstream summer movie is going to have a cast as diverse as F&F 6. Star Trek, kind of (and I’m dying to see Star Trek: Into Darkness) and that’s it?
- It’s just endless car chase sequences: well yeah, but the interesting thing about the F&F franchise is that director Justin Lin actively tries to use the least amount of CG possible. Not saying that it doesn’t exist in the film, but the majority if it employs a lot of stuntmen, stunt drivers, pyro guys. Watching a F&F movie helps promote job creation 😉
- We need more Justin Lins in the industry: Minority directors making big movies? Yes please – especially if they’re down to cast Asian-American actors as protagonists, and not antagonists or clowns.
- The more F&F movies they make, the more Universal gets money, the more money they have the more they can spend on another Jurassic Park… ’nuff said.
It won’t be the greatest, but hey, at least it isn’t Twilight.
Michael Ladiona 