The answer is me, obviously. It’d be really weird if I said “My Grandma” and then put her thoughts below. But also maybe funny in its own way? Anyway, if you’re disappointed that that’s not the thing I’m doing, then I’m sorry. But yeah, I just watched all the Fast & Furious movies. I’d never seen them before. I knew a lot about them, but I hadn’t actually watched them. And they’re very interesting, honestly. I assumed they’d all be terrible, so I just never watched them, and that was not the case. I thought since Fast X was coming out, I’d watch all of them and then go see the new one and talk about all eleven movies at once. And when I talk about Fast X, I’m just gonna go ahead and spoil it. Even though I don’t think you really can? They’re all real dumb movies. So that’s what I’m going to do. Spoilers for all eleven movies. This’ll be one post, because I don’t have a lot to say about all of them. I think I fell asleep for parts of Fast Seven and Hobbs & Shaw. But yeah. It’s family time. Grab a corona and your baldest friend and start driving.

Things to look out for
A franchise that’s been going on for this long has a lot of tropes and reoccurring ideas and visual cues. Here are a few that I picked up on that manage to transcend and feature heavily in many of these movies:
– People winning street races because they have Nos, but only because they know to use it at the right time and being a good person and loving your family transcends whatever shitty car you may be driving (F1, F2, F4, F7, F8, F9, FX)
– Barbecues (F1, F6, F8, F9, FX)
– Women wearing barely any clothing while dancing around cars and sometimes waving flags (F1, F2, F3, F4, F5, F6, F7, F8, F9, FX)
– Dame Helen Mirren being a delight (F8, Hobbs & Shaw, F9, FX)
– Unnecessary property damage (F2, F3, F5, F7, F8, F9, FX)
– Tyrese Gibson and sometimes Ludacris saying and doing creepy things around women who are wearing barely any clothing (F2, F5, F6, F7)
– Vin Diesel saying his lines like he’s about to fall asleep (F1, F4, F5, F6, F7, F8, F9, FX)
– Brian being trusted as a cop even though he clearly loves Vin Diesel and crime way too much to do his job (F1, F2, F4)
– Han being awesome (F3, F4, F5, F6, F9, FX)
– Acting like Tokyo Drift is supposed to take place in 2015 even though everyone in that movie was being the most mid-2000’s that a person could possibly be (F4, F5, F6, F7, F9)
– Suddenly being alive again (F6, F9, FX)
– Drag racers that just start being global super spies (F5, F6, F7, F8, F9, FX)
– Surviving things that would kill someone in real life (F1, F2, F3, F5, F6, F7, F8, F9, FX)
– People that are just so bald (F1, F2, F4, F5, F6, F7, F8, Hobbs & Shaw, F9, FX)
– Pretending that Paul Walker didn’t die (F7, F8, F9, FX)
– Aging male character actors playing prominent cops of some kind (F1, F2, F4, F7, F8, F9)
– Kurt Russell being a Nick Fury kinda guy (F7, F8, F9)
– Brian having a boss that has his back and a boss that hates him but later ends up coming back to help him in a different movie (F1, F2, F4, F6)
– Law enforcement officials telling Brian to just “Finish the case and arrest someone already” (F1, F2, F4)
– Someone wanting revenge (F4, F6, F7, F8, Hobbs & Shaw, F9, FX)
– British people out for revenge (F6, F7, F8, Hobbs & Shaw)
– The Rock and Vin Diesel being unable to work together behind the scenes (F7, F8, Hobbs & Shaw, F9, FX)
– Someone from the past coming back to get Vin Diesel (F4, F6, F7, F9, FX)
– Being unable to decide on a consistent way of titling any of these movies (F4, F5, F6, F7, F8, F9, FX)
– Michelle Rodriguez being underused and given nothing to do as a character (F1, F4, F6, F7, F8, F9)
– Family (F1, F4, F5, F6, F7, F8, Hobbs & Shaw, F9, FX)
– Vin Diesel’s actions being justified because of family (F4, F6, F7, F8, F9, FX)

So those are some thing to consider. Those were not the ramblings of a madman, it was a helpful insight into my viewings of the movie. I’m not insane, I just watched some weird stuff. Stay with me here. It’s time to talk movies.

The Fast and the Furious –
The story of this movie is a tale as old as time, a song as old as rhyme. Which is to say that, just like Romeo & Juliet, Cinderella, and Pinocchio, we’ve all seen this story before. Unlike those films, the overall plot of this movie is essentially taken from Point Break, which also had a remake, and was also then reused for 2 Fast 2 Furious and Fast & Furious. So Brian, played by Paul Walker, is a police officer who has to go undercover with a bunch of street racers to figure out who’s stealing all the DVD players. The answer is Dominic Toretto, played by Vin Diesel, and the two of them become such good friends that Brian lets Dom go in the end. Brian also develops a romantic relationship with Mia, Dom’s sister, because she makes a really good tuna sandwich. Dom is dating Letty, played by Michelle Rodriguez. Do either of them have any real kind of character beyond that? Not at this point, no. Also there’s some racing and cars and stuff and one big anti-climactic heist that goes wrong and nothing gets stolen. And when they have big racing events they call them Race Wars, which isn’t weird at all.
I don’t think it’s a good one. Not much happens and there’s lots of people being creepy to and around women. Also Paul Walker isn’t very good in this or the next one, in my opinion. There’s also a character in this that people apparently liked a lot named Jesse that I thought was unbelievably annoying, and another character named Hector that I thought was cool. So overall, eh.

Miscellaneous thoughts?
Ted Levine is in this movie. He’s the aging character actor playing the cop boss that has Brian’s back. I’m a big fan of Ted Levine, but I’m sure most people reading this don’t know who Ted Levine is. Ted Levine was Buffalo Bill in The Silence of The Lambs and the Chief in Monk. Ted Levine’s a very good actor. Enjoyed seeing him in this. I did think the movie had a pretty interesting aesthetic, which I appreciated. But yeah.

Bald Count –
So I know there’s more than this, but the main two I remember are Vin and Hector. So we’re at two bald points so far.

—

2 Fast 2 Furious –
So, the plot of this movie… Ugh. Basically Brian is used by the cops as an undercover agent in a street racing villain’s crew. One of the cops he talks to is Agent Bilkins, the guy who hated him in the first one but now is his pal in this one. He’s the first cop that hated Brian initially to then be friendly with him and help him out later on. Brian needs a guy to take the criminal down with, so he recruits his childhood friend, Tyrese Gibson. Also Ludacris is in this too. Eventually Brian and Tyrese manage to stop the villain and escape the cops with Brian’s new love interest Eva Mendes. I think. Does she make it out? Yeah, because she cameos at the very end of Fast Five. That’s mostly the plot. Also there’s like three different groups of people trying to beat the shit out of Brian and Tyrese.
I didn’t really like this one either. I appreciated Bilkins’ turn. Also there’s a character named Suki that I liked. Otherwise this one was pretty unmemorable in general, and other than the introduction of Tyrese and Ludacris, this movie doesn’t have much weight on the franchise as a whole in general. And those two have completely new personalities now.

Miscellaneous thoughts?
The plot of this movie is not far off from that of Mission Impossible 2, from memory. Or at least the overall vibe those movies give me is the same. MI2 is not a good movie, but it’s a classic. And there are too many goddamn antagonists in this stupid movie, none of them stood out in a way that I could differentiate them from one another.

Bald Count – Tyrese Gibson brings the franchise an extra bald point in their second outing. And that’s the only bald guy I remember.

—

Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift –
What is the story of this movie? A guy named Sean has a weird Southern accent that is grating and annoying in a way that you would assume is a bad voice the actor is doing, but it is in fact the way he talks. Sean gets in fights and street races asshole jocks even though he’s bad at driving, drifting especially, and destroys houses that are under construction. So his fed-up mom sends him to Tokyo to live with his dad. His dad says no street racing and so Sean immediately starts street racing in Tokyo and ends up destroying this guy named Han’s car. Also Bow Wow is in this. Sean ends up working with Han to fix his car or get him a new car or something. And there’s a gangster guy named DK that dates high schoolers and hates Sean and in the end Sean gets sad because Han dies, he makes up with his dad, races DK, gets together with the high schooler that DK loves, and talks to Vin Diesel about Han’s death. Because Han and Vin Diesel are friends. Retroactively. And now over the next three movies, Han will feature heavily, thus separating the timeline so Tokyo Drift takes place after those.
This one is pretty good, I guess. The races are fun to watch and Han is great. The lead actor, Lucas Black, is kind of hard to watch. I didn’t think he was very good. Also he’s meant to be a seventeen year old boy but in fact was twenty-four when he filmed it and looked like he was twenty-eight. What makes that even better is when he shows back up in Furious 7 and we see the rest of his conversation with Vin Diesel. Because if there’s anything I love more than twenty-four year olds pretending to be seventeen, it’s thirty-three year olds pretending to be seventeen. Good stuff. I liked the villain in this too.

Miscellaneous thoughts?
It is hilarious to me that Justin Lin restructured the timeline of this movies so this one supposedly takes place in 2015. And even though none of the main cast is in this except for Vin, this movie has now had more weight on the franchise than the first two. Because Han’s death in a car crash/explosion, as I will say later, gets two additional retcons later on.

Bald Count –
There aren’t a lot of bald people in this one, I’m sad to say. This is a plus zero for the bald count, my friends. There may be a lot of drifting in Tokyo, but there’s also a lot of hair. Actor Sung Kang gets plus five beauty points for his hair, which is excellent. Vin Diesel showing up at the very end doesn’t help the score.

—

Fast and Furious –
This title is so stupid. I think it’s ridiculous to just drop The from the title of the movie. Although it’s funny to me because DC did the opposite. Batman -> The Batman. Suicide Squad -> The Suicide Squad. And this is also the first time they clearly lost track of how to title these movies. So basically Brian is a cop again and Dom and Letty are doing crimes elsewhere. Then Letty leaves and dies off-screen after infiltrating a criminal empire for Brian so she could clear Dom’s name and allow him to come home. Actor Shea Whigham appears as Brian’s third mean commanding officer at the FBI, and Brian breaks his nose at one point. That’ll come back later, for some reason. Dom and Brian race to join the gang of the guy who had Letty killed, and Dom wins by cheating (According to Brian). Also Gal Gadot is there. Brian and Mia get back together and there’s a big car chase in a tunnel or mineshaft or something. The movie ends with Dom being arrested and Brian and Mia going to break him out.
I didn’t really like this one. I guess it’s slightly better than the second one because it is actually relevant to the plot of these movies. It has been said by many people that this franchise as it stands didn’t really start until the fifth movie, and I definitely agree with that. This one is just boring.

Miscellaneous thoughts?
The guy that plays Mother’s Milk on The Boys is in this, and he gets killed out of revenge for killing Letty. But Letty isn’t actually dead, she’s hanging out with Luke Evans. And Gal Gadot does a weird accent in this that definitely isn’t the way she really talks. Oh, and I guess there’s a semi-cool death scene where someone gets killed with a car. Also there’s a villain reveal where the guy who claimed to be the lead criminal’s right-hand guy was actually the crime boss the whole time. But I didn’t remember the name of that guy and just assumed he was the lead villain, based on how he acted.

Bald Count – The guy from The Boys is kind of bald? Plus one.

—

Fast Five –
Lots of people say this is the best one. I thought it was pretty good. Basically, Brian and Mia break Dom out of his prison transport and then later end up heisting a big safe from a crime boss or governor or something who’s evil but nice. The Rock shows up and starts tracking the team, only to shoot the villain in the head and let Dom get away in the end. At one point Vin Diesel says “This is Brazil!” and lots of people point guns at the Rock. It’s also the movie where Dom, Brian, Roman, Ludacris and Han unite. So that’s cool. It’s like the first four movies were building up separate vaguely defined street racer characters, and Fast Five is the Avengers movie bringing them all together. And who best to have them go up against? The most bald man in the world, Dwayne “Rock, The” Johnson. This is indeed a good one. It’s the best one so far.

Miscellaneous thoughts?
Chris Hemsworth’s wife is in this. Her name is Elsa Pataky. At the beginning of the movie a bunch of reporters show up to talk about the prison bus that Paul Walker flipped, and one of the reporters is played by Jay Jackson, who also played Perd Hapley on Parks and Rec. I was hoping he was gonna say something like “The headline of this particular story is a statement, which is also a fact: That man flipped a bus with his car and did not die.” Unfortunately, he didn’t say that. At one point Tyrese Gibson says the words “Sounds like a whole lot of vaginal activity” and it made me deeply uncomfortable. There’s another bit where Dom is able to break free of Hobbs’s grasp by seeing his sister, who is both family and pregnant, thereby carrying the potential of more family. The power of double family helps Dom survive. Elsa Pataky agrees to help Dom because they bonded over the family they both lost. Which will in turn help her understand why he dumps her like a sack of potatoes when Letty comes back. Even the power of minus family benefits Dom. Not that anything bad could happen to him. He’s an unbeatable God in this universe he’s crafted for himself. He’s like a superhero, but not as compelling or fun to watch. The funniest scene in the whole thing is when Vin says “We need cars” so they all break into a police station, steal four police cars, and immediately drag race each other.

Bald Count –
Plus twenty-five bald points for The Rock, which gets a times three multiplier for Tyrese, Vin and The Rock uniting their bald heads together in the same franchise. So plus seventy-five points.

—

Fast and Furious 6 –
This one isn’t incredibly memorable. There are just a lot of mean British people running around, including Luke Evans as Owen Shaw. Remember the name Shaw. Three additional charismatic and cranky British actors will be introduced as this random guy’s family members over the next three movies, so get ready. Basically after trying to arrest Vin Diesel for a movie, the Rock tells him that Letty is still alive and she’s got amnesia and she’s working for a British dude. Brian goes to prison and talks to the crime guy she was working with while undercover for Brian when she died to confirm that it’s her and then goes back to the gang and confirms she is in fact alive. At the end of the movie Elsa Pataky leaves Vin because she understands that Vin truly loved Letty, as she did her husband. And Letty doesn’t remember Dom, but at the ending barbecue she’s sitting in his lap, so they’re basically back to how things were. Also Gal Gadot dies by vaguely falling off a plane that hadn’t taken off yet. Or does she???

Miscellaneous thoughts?
I didn’t have much to say about this one. There’s a clipshow of the old movies at the beginning that looks like the intro to a CW show. The Rock calls women “Woman” for no reason at all. Roman sucks. There’s a British guy that gets tricked into taking off his clothes. That’s about it. Oh, and Shea Whigham comes back and helps Paul Walker go to prison, only so Paul Walker can break his nose again.

Bald Count –
No notable additions to the tally I can think of currently. A shame.

—

Furious 7 –
So I don’t remember this one much, it can’t be a good one. Dom and Letty go back to Race Wars but Letty can’t remember Hector and she freaks out and leaves Dom. Jason Statham kills Han to get revenge for his brother, Luke Evans, who is in a hospital that Jason Statham kills everybody else at for no reason at all. Then Statham blows up Mia and CGI Brian’s house. Because this movie is also the one where, unfortunately, Paul Walker died in real life and they had to delay the movie to recreate him for some of the scenes he hadn’t filmed. They did a pretty good job, I guess. I didn’t really enjoy this one. Roman and Ludacris were more leering, there’s a new hacker lady for them to ogle at. Basically in order to get revenge on Statham’s revenge and find Statham, Dom has to do a mission for Mr. Nobody/Kurt Russell and retrieve a tech thingy that can look at all tech stuff and find people anywhere by rescuing a hacker from a mean Djimon Hounsou criminal man and heisting it from him or something. There’s lots of car chases and stuff and then Vin and Statham fight on a car park and Vin says “The streets always win” and kicks the pavement and the carpark collapses. Then Vin almost dies but Letty remembers her love for his bald head and how they got married and he wore a tank top and the reemergence of family brings Dom back. And the Rock is in the hospital for a while until he flexes his cast off and shoots a bunch of people.

Miscellaneous thoughts?
The Tokyo Drift gang returns in this, which, as I said above, just delighted me. I love to see thirty-three year olds pretend to be in high school.

Bald Count –
I didn’t love the movie, but obviously you gotta give this one an extra fifty bald points for both the introduction of Statham and the further potential of his chemistry with Dwayne.

—

The Fate of the Furious (The F8 is implied but never explicitly st8ed) –
The stakes have never been higher than in this movie, because Dom Toretto betrays his family in this one. Basically Charlize Theron shows up and says “Vin Diesel, I kidnapped that lady cop you were with briefly before Michelle Rodriguez was revealed to be alive, and your son!” And then she kills Elsa Pataky. So Vin has to betray the familia. There’s a big chase where Charlize Theron takes over cars with AI or something and sends them after the team. Self-driving cars gone bad, basically. Charlize Theron does have awful dreadlocks in this for some reason. And there’s a bit with a submarine chase at the end, and there’s a barbecue with the new baby Brian and background stand-ins for the Rock and Vin when they couldn’t be in the same scenes.
I think this is my favorite one? I added a question mark because I’m not sure. I know, based on the internet, that I’m supposed to love either Tokyo Drift, Fast Five, or Furious 7 because those are the ones people think are good. Or the first one, if you think this whole thing is ridiculous and it’s gotten out of control (It is and has). Those are the movies the internet says you should love. But I’m a beautiful snowflake unicorn, I’m allowed to have my own unique opinion, and I like this one, even though Scott Eastwood isn’t a very good actor and he’s in this too much. This one has the best bits, I think. I really like the beginning where Vin Diesel outraces a guy in a piece of shit car, and then lets the guy keep his car because Dom is the best person on Earth. I like the bickering between The Rock and Jason Statham, which is not as enjoyable in Hobbs and Shaw. I love the bit where Jason Statham kills a bunch of guys on a plane while protecting Vin Diesel’s baby, who, by the time Fast X rolls around, has a much darker skin tone. I love the car sequence I mentioned with the self-driving thing. This is a good one.

Miscellaneous thoughts?
If I were to rewatch one of these, it would be this one. Quite easily. Oh, and I almost forgot! Helen Mirren is in this one! She’s Statham and Luke Evans’s mum. Love her. At one point Shea Whigham shows up again and his nose is still kinda fucked. He helps Vin with something and makes a comment about what happens when he helps these people and points at his face or something. This doesn’t work. The only connection Whigham has to the group is Brian, who in universe has driven off into the sunlight to take care of children while all of his friends and family members go on further life-threatening adventures.

Bald Count –
Plus fifty for the electric chemistry between Statham and the Rock, with an additional five for the fact that Charlize Theron would’ve been better off shaving her head.

—

Fast and the Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw –
Statham and the Rock are united by their respective governments to stop Idris Elba from doing a bad thing. Maybe a virus? Yes, that sounds right. And Statham’s sister, Vanessa Kirby, has the virus and she’s been framed and she almost dies but then she doesn’t and her and Statham go see their mum in prison without their brother, Luke Evans. That’s pretty much it. They fight Idris Elba who enhanced his body and there’s a big scene where they kick each other in the rain. I didn’t like this one. I thought it wasn’t very good and all the fun arguments between the Rock and Statham weren’t as fun in this one. Also the Rock goes back to Samoa because he was avoiding his family or something.

Miscellaneous thoughts?
They break Idris Elba’s back in the end and that’s pretty funny.

Bald Count –
He’s not quite bald, but plus 100 points for the Idris/Statham/Rock combo.

—

F9: The Fast Saga –
You thought Dom and Mia didn’t have any other siblings, didn’t you? Well you’re an idiot, because John Cena is here to run around with a spray tan and do sullen secret agent things while Mia and Letty look for someone hunting Han’s past because that’s related to all of this somehow (Han’s alive and he’s exploring his own past? Yeah, that’s it. It’s Han and him and Gal Gadot worked for the secret agent Mr. Nobody guy apparently) and Dom goes off on his own adventures because he refuses to talk to any other actors. And the Tokyo Drift gang returns to send Ludacris and Roman to space with magnets or something. Charlize Theron is in a box and she has a bowl cut now that looks worse than her last hair cut. Dom comes out of hiding because his estranged brother that he thought sabotaged his dad’s car and killed him is trying to kidnap some little girl that Han rescued? And at the end John Cena is betrayed and switches sides and family is family or whatever. This one was hard to watch, if I’m being honest.

Miscellaneous thoughts?
Michael Rooker is in this and that’s pretty cool. I like Michael Rooker.

Bald Count –
John Cena as Jakob Toretto is not bald, but he has the energy of a bald man. In fact, his having hair could be viewed as a further betrayal to his family. Also, Michael Rooker, plus 150 points.

—

Fast X –
This was a fun one. Have you seen Fast Five? No, you haven’t! You didn’t see the scenes where Jason Momoa was in a movie that came out many years before he was famous. You see, the big villain in Fast Five had a son that acts a lot like the Joker and wants big revenge on Dom and his family, even though the Rock killed his dad. So Jason Momoa splits up the team by having Michelle Rodriguez arrested and framed for unleashing a big explosive ball on the streets of Rome and almost killing Charlize (who wasn’t on the team but by the end of it all she kinda will be in spirit) and sending Roman, Han, Ludacris, and Ramsey (Hacker lady?) on the run. But thankfully everybody’s got secret extra family members all over the world that can help out! Secret Agent Kurt Russell had a daughter who’s also Brie Larson and she’s super intent on helping the big bald Dom, even though her new boss, the excessively muscley Alan Ritchson, has made capturing Dom his priority. And Jason Momoa’s mysterious new racing friend, who’s she? Is that Daniella Melchior, the actress who played Ratcatcher 2 in The Suicide Squad? It is! Wow, glad she’s here. It’s cool to meet a mysterious new character with no ties whatsoev- What? I’m sorry? She’s the sister of Elsa Pataky’s character, thereby making her Brian Toretto’s aunt? Yeah, that tracks. Jason Momoa finds John Cena, who acts just like normal goofy guy John Cena now instead of whatever his character was in the last movie. Cena has been traveling with his nephew, keeping him off the grid. But then Alan Ritchson starts helping Vin Diesel only to reveal he was still a bad guy and him and Jason Momoa are best friends. So Momoa kidnaps lil’ Brian and kills Cena (Technically Cena sacrifices himself by using his weird custom car he made with cannons to launch him into the air at another car coming for Dom and his son and he basically explodes in an explosion sandwich. It’s a very funny scene, honestly, my friend Andrew and I laughed quite a bit.) and then Dom gets his kid back and stands at the bottom of an exploding dam for a big cliffhanger. Ludacris, Roman, Ramsey, and Han are in a plane that’s sent into a mountain, but they aren’t really dead. Michelle Rodriguez and Charlize Theron escape prison and get rescued by Gal Gadot in a submarine. She’s alive!
Death is not the end in this franchise. Either you didn’t really die or you have a secret family member that’ll show up later. So John Cena almost certainly isn’t really dead. And the submarine Gal Gadot shows up in is either the same submarine from F8 or the submarine’s aunt. What else happens? Pete Davidson shows up for no reason. Jason Statham and Helen Mirren appear to remind you that that family exists and imply they have their own more interesting story going on. And despite their real life hatred of one another, Dwayne Johnson returned to Vin Diesel’s franchise at the very end. Good stuff? Yeah, I kinda loved this one even though it also was not good.

Miscellaneous thoughts?
At one point Vin Diesel says “Daddy” and that just isn’t okay. Jason Momoa is fun because he’s just being a crazy weirdo. This movie does play too heavily into recapping and showing clips from the other movies. I was taking notes on this as I watched it in the theater, but I gave up after Pete Davidson. I have nothing against him, but why? Also, Han’s sidekick from the last movie isn’t in this and it isn’t referenced. They just say he’s on the dating apps and people are in love with him. Okay? And there’s a bit where Han eats a psychedelic muffin, begins to trip, and then puts the top back on the muffin and stops tripping. Also the agency is called “The Agency”. Great job, guys. How’d you come up with that one?

Bald Count –
No additional bald people that I noticed, but this franchise has officially won the bald count because Charlize Theron finally has good hair. And Jason Momoa’s flowy suit energy and catchphrases add up to an additional 500 bald points.

—

So that’s it. I journeyed through the void and came back with a glistening bald head and a big muscle car. I’m kidding, obviously. I love my hair and I can’t drive. But I hope this was enjoyable on some level. It was a lot to tackle and because I was busy moving I forgot to finish it. Overall, I kinda enjoyed going through these. Watching Fast X in theaters with my friend and making fun of it and taking notes for this kind of felt like a reward. I’m looking forward to whatever weird movie they churn out next, with all the stupid behind the scenes shit happening. Thanks for reading this! And be careful, there’s a lice outbreak going on. That’s why there are so many bald people in these movies.