Fast Six
Going through my movies tag, and I'm realizing that although I had no specific The Fast and the Furious movie tag (fixed that now!), almost every post I've ever made about a TF&TF film is tagged "things that make me happy". So, that probably tells you all you really need to know ;)
But in case you want to know more....
I liked Fast Six a lot better than Fast Five, at least upon first viewing. But my hands down favorite thing was, of course, the post-disclaimer reveal of the Fast Seven villain....
I have only wanted this for my ENTIRE LIFE. Or pretty much, the entire run of the TF&TF franchise because TF&TF came out in 2001, and then The Transporter came out in 2002 and by the time Fast franchise had hit movie number four, I was sooooo ready for a crossover, or for Statham to join the cast (literally the only time I have been like, "you know what this franchise needs? more white guys!" So, good job, TF&TF)
There were, in fact, rumors, when Fast Six was first being buzzed about that Statham might be in that film, and when he wasn't, I was fairly disappointed (particularly when we got the first trailers and I was like but...Jason Statham could play this bad guy! Why is this bad guy not Jason Statham? Boo!)
But good things come to those who wait, and we are indeed getting Jason Statham in the next film. I am so excited! July 2014 needs to get in my belly, if you know what I mean. Odds seem he'll be the older brother Shaw mentioned, no? Since he had Letty's necklace, last seen in Shaw's hands. I kind of hope he isn't - would like the film to be the start of a completely new story for the gang - but we'll see.
So! Once again, Chris Morgan has gotten me all jazzed up with his franchise with a hell of a tease for the next movie, just like he did at the end of Five, with the tease of Letty being alive.t
But I'm getting ahead of myself! Let's back up and let me just spitball some stuff about the movie itself.
- "I need your help, Dom. I need your team."
- "Letty's dead, Dom."
"I need to know for sure."
"Then I'm going with you."
"You said that you were gonna leave this life behind."
"We both said that we were leaving the life behind. "
- "Seriously...? You're a millionaire and you're still trying to ask for money?"
"That's how you stay a millionaire."
- "This could be worth billions to the right buyer."
"Billions? Why don't we just steal that shit?"
- "This is on me. I'm the one who served her up to Braga. I'm the one who gets to make it right. Let me make this right."
- "Your brother never told you never to threaten a man's family?"
- "He wasn't going without you."
In other news, May was a busy month. At the beginning of the month Bri and I did our first Supernatural convention and it was mostly fun except for the important ways in which it was uncomfortable and degrading and sucked, so we probably won't do another full convention weekend any time soon. Bri wrote about her experience here. I wrote about mine here and here. I'm glad we went, though, because some of it was fun and I got to visit the railroad depot where The Station Agent was filmed in part!
May also brought my 10 year college reunion. The weather was awful, but overall it was a good time. Providence, and College Hill in particular, have changed a lot. It was great to see everyone! I wish they all lived so much closer. Kansas and LA are just too far away. On our way back, we swung into the East Village, like the cosmopolitan travelers that we are, to have an early dinner at a vegetarian place, and that was a nice addition to the trip.
....and now I am off to see Fast Six again. JUDGE NOT.
But in case you want to know more....
I liked Fast Six a lot better than Fast Five, at least upon first viewing. But my hands down favorite thing was, of course, the post-disclaimer reveal of the Fast Seven villain....
I have only wanted this for my ENTIRE LIFE. Or pretty much, the entire run of the TF&TF franchise because TF&TF came out in 2001, and then The Transporter came out in 2002 and by the time Fast franchise had hit movie number four, I was sooooo ready for a crossover, or for Statham to join the cast (literally the only time I have been like, "you know what this franchise needs? more white guys!" So, good job, TF&TF)
There were, in fact, rumors, when Fast Six was first being buzzed about that Statham might be in that film, and when he wasn't, I was fairly disappointed (particularly when we got the first trailers and I was like but...Jason Statham could play this bad guy! Why is this bad guy not Jason Statham? Boo!)
But good things come to those who wait, and we are indeed getting Jason Statham in the next film. I am so excited! July 2014 needs to get in my belly, if you know what I mean. Odds seem he'll be the older brother Shaw mentioned, no? Since he had Letty's necklace, last seen in Shaw's hands. I kind of hope he isn't - would like the film to be the start of a completely new story for the gang - but we'll see.
So! Once again, Chris Morgan has gotten me all jazzed up with his franchise with a hell of a tease for the next movie, just like he did at the end of Five, with the tease of Letty being alive.t
But I'm getting ahead of myself! Let's back up and let me just spitball some stuff about the movie itself.
- The title sequence was a little indulgent, but I looooooooooooooooooooooooooved it. Scenes from all the stories building to this point (every film except Tokyo Drift) were woven together in a wonderful nostalgia trip for people who have been along for the ride since the first film. It was a nice reminder of the journey these characters have been on, and it set the stage nicely for a film that built in many ways on what had come before. And I really like 'We Own It', which I gather is essentially the film's theme. I love the beat (I am a simple girl) and besides all the talk of money, it speaks of a group that is inseparable, who thrive together, and struggle together, who don't care what other people think of them as long as they're on the same page and whose loyalty to each other is beyond question. Sounds right!
- If you like action films, I certainly think you could sit down to this one without having seen any of the others, but I also think that if you have seen the earlier films, the film rewarded you for that loyalty with a lot of little callbacks. (First I also love that with every film in the franchise, the universe of the films grows, a very natural way. Interesting/fun characters are introduced, and rather than immediately being killed off or never being seen from again, surprise of surprises, they get folded into the mix. Rome, Tej, Han, Gisele, Elena, Hobbs, etc.
- If I'm ranking the films in terms of my personal favorites, this was probably my favorite of the films since the original. I think. There was some good stuff in Fast Five, but it was just too much in too many ways. Four was a little slow for my taste (super CGI heavy, and the CGI wasn't particularly good, which I think took away from many of the action sequences) but had some excellent Dom x Brian stuff and obviously set a lot of the groundwork for Six. So, my rankings as of right now would probably be Original, Six, Four, Five, Two, Three.
- I liked that there was an emphatic real return to the importance of the team/family. For me, Five was too much about money and that drug cartel, and it didn't feel right. It felt like a heist movie and heist movies are more about the particular heist and how clever it is. And frankly, I don't watch the Fast movies for plots/crimes. I watch them to keep up with what's going on with my little family of internationally wanted criminals with a penchant for fast cars. Everyone (well, most everyone) comes back from the first five films, even though they're millionaires ten times over, for Dom, and to the extent they knew her, for Letty. None of them had to come back. None of them had to put their lives at risk. And yes, Brian works out with Hobbs that pardons have to be on the table, but by the time he's done that, all of them have already responded to Dom's call. All of them have already shown up. Because they're a team. Except for Leo and Santos, but Rome pretty much has a handle on the comic relief thing, so I didn't miss them.
- I also really liked the return of something that I felt was glaringly absent from Five, which was a concern for the welfare of the public/civilians around them when the team was at work/on the road. It was big in the first film that they tried not to hurt "the little people". They went after truckers that were covered by insurance, and tried to avoid causing death. Yes, they drove at excessive speeds, on public streets, for thrills, but they drove with control and to avoid contact. In Five, there's this whole ridiculous sequence where they're dragging this huge safe through the streets, and it's swinging about wildly destroying property and taking out sidewalks of people, and there just seemed to be a complete disregard for civilian casualties that didn't sit right. But then this movie definitely contrasts Shaw's willingness to hurt ordinary people with the efforts of Dom's crew to avoid collateral damage (Letty, in particular, takes clear issue with Shaw's lack of regard for human life), and I'm glad someone remembered that about these guys.
- Gisele and Han are just the cutest, okay? I really enjoy their dynamic, and I've always really liked that Han is so taken with her and that he's clearly mellowed her out a little bit too. I loved his fruitless "Be careful" and her flatly stated (but patient, and loving) "This is who we are". I was not spoiled for Gisele's death, so that scene really worked, because I was just thinking ugh, is he really gonna save her again? it's just getting repetitive now, when no, they pulled a devastating swap on us, because this time she saves him, at the cost of her life. Of course, this is Fastverse, and we never saw a body, and we saw how they did us with Letty when there was no body.....but hard to see how she could ever have survived that fall onto the world's longest runway.
- How much did I love that Mia looked around, and noticed Gisele was missing? Everything she'd just been through, everything that was going on, and she looked around, took stock of everyone else, and said "...where's Gisele?" I am lying if I say that I've ever really cared much about Mia, but I really loved her in that moment. And I loved that she registered what was in Han's face.
- I also loved that Brian didn't just stand there and let The Woman handle comforting Han. He also went to his friend and shared in his loss, because it wasn't just his loss - it was their loss, too.
- Some people really geek out about it I know, so I was glad the streak of Mia getting to do a bit of driving was kept alive.
- Speaking of Mia and Brian.....how...oddly right to see them with little baby Jack. What's the significance of that name by the way? I was racking my brain trying to think of who he might be named after from the Fast verse, and nothing doing. I liked that there wasn't a lot of drama and soul searching about whether Brian would go with Dom. Like, of course he would. Letty's alive. They have to go find her. And Mia was note perfect in giving Brian her blessing. "I'll feel [better] knowing you're both out there, watching each other's backs. You're stronger together - you always were." It's wonderful to see such a healthy dynamic between the three of them, to see how far they've come from the first film in terms of respect and trust for each other, because there's little more important to either of them than the other two. And frankly, after eight seasons of Supernatural, it's great to see a threeway relationship done right, one that actually develops over time.
- Brian was so angry at the thought that someone would try to manipulate Dom into thinking Letty was alive. "You know, I used to do this shit all the time as a cop. This is exactly what cops do. He's messing with your head." It warmed the cockles of my cold shipper heart. As did Brian's direct appeal to Dom for permission to return to LA, at the risk of being identified and captured, to question Braga about what happened to Letty. And Dom's short, quiet, and sweet: "Be careful." And then he refuses to move on until Brian's safely back. My heart grew three sizes that day. I think it could have been very easy to focus on the Letty x Dom relationship to the exclusion or detriment of all the other relationships Dom has in the movie, and the story emphatically does not do that, which is beautiful and way to know your audience.
- Rome was the comic relief again, but he was cracking me up, so I didn't much mind. Still, I would have liked at least one non-jokey scene between he and Brian, perhaps highlighting that while he may not have any great love for Dom, he was willing to help out here, even without the pay day, because of Brian. (That he was the least devoted was sort of played for laughs -- "Now we've got cars flying in the air, on some 007 shit? This is not what we do! We need to get the hell out of Dodge." -- and since he could have walked away at any time, it would have been nice to have a quiet scene highlighting why, all his grumbling about the danger and no pay day aside, he did stay). The Brian x Rome friendship really took a backseat once Dom was back on the scene, and it's easy to forget that Rome was Brian's closest friend growing up. The most we got was Brian expressing particular concern when Rome's being borne down on by Shaw in the tank, and Rome being the one to most vociferously oppose Brian's plan to sneak back into the US to question Braga, but I did appreciate those little touches.
- I know little makes sense about these movies, but Interpol rolling in GUNS AND LIGHTS ABLAZING (seriously, you could see those lights from space) to surround Shaw's hideout, and then to send in his wired stooge to be like "hey, what's up? yeah, the police just let me go, crazy, right?" was the worst. There was literally no attempt at stealth. They wired homeboy RIGHT OUTSIDE THE DOOR. Like...what? Cracked me up. Also, Shaw threatens Dom's family, and it doesn't occur to him to maybe make sure Mia and Elena and Jack are somewhere else? Hobbs found him super easily, why would he think Mia was safe?
- I wish there had been more of a Letty x Brian scene, but I was really grateful they got any scene together at all. Mia x Brian x Dom, is about to become Mia x Brian x Dom x Letty again, and the relationship between the two of them is important, too.
- So, Letty!!! I was spoiled on Letty's amnesia going in, but that's fairly quickly revealed, so no biggie. I appreciated that Dom doesn't just appeal to her about what they had before, but sets out to get her attention and win her over all over again. I loved her "this guy's crazy!" reaction to the stunts he pulled during their race. The scars scene was intimate and sweetly played as well. The whole story of their lives together is told in the scars on their bodies - they are that permanently and fundamentally a part of who the other is. I wish Letty's memory had come back, but I guess that might have been too cheesy, considering that we're to believe she's been without her memories for at least what, four years, five years? But one thing I always liked about their dynamic was how equal and balanced it was, how she wasn't just his girl, she was his partner and confidante and she could read him like a book and work him with a glance. With Letty having amnesia, it now feels a little less so. She feels a little lesser. Obviously, she's still a feisty little fighter, and she can still drive, but in terms of how she relates to Dom, her fire and her spirit seem comparatively dimmed. It'll be interesting to see if things are back to normal in the next film. I hope so.
- Favorite lines:
- "I need your help, Dom. I need your team."
- "Letty's dead, Dom."
"I need to know for sure."
"Then I'm going with you."
"You said that you were gonna leave this life behind."
"We both said that we were leaving the life behind. "
- "Seriously...? You're a millionaire and you're still trying to ask for money?"
"That's how you stay a millionaire."
- "This could be worth billions to the right buyer."
"Billions? Why don't we just steal that shit?"
- "This is on me. I'm the one who served her up to Braga. I'm the one who gets to make it right. Let me make this right."
- "Your brother never told you never to threaten a man's family?"
- "He wasn't going without you."
In other news, May was a busy month. At the beginning of the month Bri and I did our first Supernatural convention and it was mostly fun except for the important ways in which it was uncomfortable and degrading and sucked, so we probably won't do another full convention weekend any time soon. Bri wrote about her experience here. I wrote about mine here and here. I'm glad we went, though, because some of it was fun and I got to visit the railroad depot where The Station Agent was filmed in part!
May also brought my 10 year college reunion. The weather was awful, but overall it was a good time. Providence, and College Hill in particular, have changed a lot. It was great to see everyone! I wish they all lived so much closer. Kansas and LA are just too far away. On our way back, we swung into the East Village, like the cosmopolitan travelers that we are, to have an early dinner at a vegetarian place, and that was a nice addition to the trip.
....and now I am off to see Fast Six again. JUDGE NOT.