Spoilers for F9 (A.K.A. F9: The Fast Saga, Fast 9, Fast & Furious 9, and in some markets Wild Speed: Jet Break) ahead, if you care about that sort of thing.
“Why is this thing successful?” is never really an interesting question, even though it usually looks like it might be. In pretty much every case imaginable, a thing is successful because people like it, and people like things for millions of different, often intangible reasons. You’d never be able to triangulate exactly why, say, the Fast & Furious movies have been as successful as they are. You’re always going to miss something. It’s a pointless exercise. Anyway, now that that’s out of the way: Why have the Fast & Furious movies been successful?
What started in 2001 as a poor LA street racer’s version of Point Break has now endured for a full two decades and so completely escaped the seeming boundaries of its original premise that the new film, F9, sees its characters escape the bonds of gravity itself. There are a lot of obvious reasons why audiences like these movies — their admirable commitment to diversity, their appeal to our lizard-brain love for continuity, their equally admirable commitment to making things blow up real good — but until now, I think their truest selling point has been a little underrated: In a ragingly cynical time, these are some of the most uncynical movies Hollywood has ever produced. There’s a meme that’s been circulating this week that sees Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto facing down dinosaurs and spaceships with nothing but the word “Family” to protect himself. It’s not really much of a joke, but they’re all sort of funny, because they’re as sincere about their delivery as the Fast movies are. Maybe there’s a lesson there.
Modern blockbusters are terrified of being laughed at. It’s an impulse that started all the way back in 2000, when Bryan Singer’s X-Men dressed its superheroes in black leather and frantically poked fun at yellow spandex. It makes sense that superhero movies, coming from a source material long considered fodder for playground mockery, would be so self-conscious. The Fast and the Furious, a meathead odyssey made by people too beautiful and ‘roided out to ever be bullied, has no such qualms. These are movies about loving your bros and missing your girlfriend, filtered into a glorious soap opera full of amnesia, long-lost estranged brothers, and repeated resurrections from certain death. It’s no surprise that franchise auteur Vin Diesel is a religious Dungeons and Dragons player, because he’s adopted all of the most appealing qualities of nerd culture without any of the second-guessing that usually comes with it.
There are jokes in the Fast & Furious movies, but they’re never at the expense of the material itself. In a strange sort of way, these are films pitched at the same level as an Old Hollywood epic like Ben-Hur, or a self-serious space opera like Avatar: They take themselves seriously without being self-serious. They have no impulse to apologize for how big and silly they are. That’s just how it has to be. It’s all there in the title: This is fast, yes. But it’s also a saga!
When F9 finally does head into outer space(!), it spares only a split second of incredulity for Tyrese Gibson’s Roman (the franchise’s sole voice of reason). This is the moment that could totally break the franchise, sending it teetering over into the land of winking self-awareness that it’s perfectly avoided until now. Instead, the moment our beautiful boys Roman and Tej (Ludacris) arrive in outer space(!!) is the single most sincere moment in the entire silly thing, culminating in a monologue that Gibson genuinely crushes. It’s crazy that we’re here, in outer space(!!!), he acknowledges. But isn’t it also kind of…beautiful?
These guys started out boosting DVD players, and now they’re in outer space. We spent the last year stuck inside, and now we’re laughing with strangers in the dark, eating popcorn and sitting in a movie theater again. I don’t know. There’s something there. Salud, mi familia.
What’s worth watching this week: The trailer for season 3 of Succession, the only good television show.