[The Fast and the Furious franchise was the first one I visited on this blog. In anxious anticipation for Fast Five, those posts reappear now only slightly reedited, and now also with links and pics.]
So, sequels...One movie has been successful, thus there’s cause to make another. There can be for various reasons, from the artistic to the monetary. Money is usually the reason, and so my study of franchises will inevitably focus on that.
There are many ways to make a sequel – not a good sequel, necessarily, just a sequel. Generally speaking, continue the story. Identify the popular or successful elements from the original and deliver those. As a standard rule, go bigger. Since the surprise and discovery of the first entry is gone, compensate for that with larger portions of the good stuff. (As a franchise goes on, this policy can deliver some rather ridiculous results, ala Batman & Robin.)
Now, a first sequel is by no means the sign of a franchise. They made a sequel to Sister Act, for goodness sake! Still, if the initial premise is appropriately malleable, and the sequel’s treatment effective, the road might be paved for more and more films, potentially ad infinitum.
And so, two years following the success of The Fast and the Furious, the public was given its 2 Fast 2 Furious. And at this point I already have to make a pit stop, to explore standards of sequel naming. A trend in modern sequels is to simply slap a “2" at the end of the title and call it good. This is the most efficient way to say, “Hey, remember that one movie? Here’s another one.” That’s all well and good, and probably far more efficient than “Return of” or “Revenge of.” Of course, as sequels go on, it can seem pretty sad, slapping the numeral “7” up there – Roman numerals are a common means of masking this issue, as is dropping the number entirely and slapping on a colon subtitle instead. Still, for the first sequel, expect a number “2.” Well, usually. The public is catching onto this trend. Sequel titles have long played with this standard. My favorite example may be The Naked Gun 2½. So with our present subject, the Fast and the Furious franchise shows its preternatural fear of the word “The,” replacing it with 2’s.
Per blogging etiquette, I shall no longer refer to 2 Fast 2 Furious as 2 Fast 2 Furious. From now on I shall call it 2F2F. Actually, I guess that makes it (2F)^2, which works out to 4F^2 (ah, probably incorrect math humor)...On second thought, I’ll just call it 2 Fast 2 Furious.
So how do you follow up a film like The Fast and the Furious? One of history’s great questions. First, you bring back as much of the creative team as possible. Certainly, Vin Diesel was the primary reason for the film’s success, its Han Solo or Jack Sparrow, so obviously he’ll be back, right?...Right?
Nope! Vin Diesel, along with original director Rob Cohen, spent much of the year prior to 2 Fast actively trying to create a new franchise. They made xXx (rated PG-13), a depressing adrenaline-fueled James Bond knock-off that I could go off on quite a tangent about. Interestingly, that was a film designed to have sequels, and it only has one (to date).
So what about 2 Fast 2 Furious (which feels like it should have a comma somewhere)? What kind of a story could it have without its central figure? Well, we could tell the story of Paul Walker’s Brian O’Conner instead. Who? You know, the Keaneux police mole, that white-bread fellow who fueled the plot and emoted not one iota. The guy I had next to nothing to say about the first time around. Okay, sure!
And since the first director is gone, we have to replace him too. In comes a rather counterintuitive choice – John Singleton, director of respected dramas Boyz N the Hood and Baby Boy. Putting a non-action director into the seat of an action movie can be a risky choice, yielding a Christopher Nolan just as often as it can a Marc Forster. Though Singleton has some prior action experience: the 2000 Shaft remake. (Rumor has it he might do a Luke Cage movie too!)
So at this stage I cannot comment on the job John Singleton did, as I haven’t actually watched this movie yet (I didn’t want to cloud my preamble). So let’s do that now...
[Sound of me watching a 1 hr. 48 min. movie]
Ah! So this is the epic tale of one Brian O’Conner, the Brianeid. The Universal logo transforms into a spinning rim as an overeager hip hop soundtrack welcomes us to a street race assembl– Holy crap, I’m stroking out! No, wait, it’s just the film’s colorful title credit. Phew.
Anyway, the first order of business is to ingratiate Milquetoast Brian to the audience. So he has to excel in an illegal street race, the sort he could barely handle at the start of the first film. This particular street race takes place in Miami. So much for L.A., which is a shame, since Singleton clearly knows L.A. Of course a location shift is a common sequel trick. The street race mise-en-scene feels like a direct copy of what we saw before. Brian is given a suitably “bad boy” entrance in his Nissan Skyline GT-R R34, subbing as a fourth for race manager Tej. Tej is played by rapper Ludacris, echoing the casting of Ja Rule in the original, except that Tej is not just a cameo. And Ludacris is possibly the best actor in this thing. Naturally, he has a song on the soundtrack. A few other characters are presented, forming something of a “gang,” but all this feels like a minor echo of the camaraderie from Part One.
So the race is on, differentiated from the first by being a circuit race. Yup, in film franchises you learn to embrace the minor variations, like the fact that this time the cars turn. Nicely, the filmmakers have largely dropped the use of CGI to indicate speed. Sadly, what we’re left with is a completely standard, unadorned action sequence – it all feels rather rote. That’s the problem of watching such similar movies back-to-back. There is an interesting climax, though, where the racers must leap across a ramped bridge. Our beloved friend NOS makes a return here, functioning pretty much like the golden mushroom from Mario Kart. Brian wins, since that is the scene’s point, and a fellow racer crashes into product placement.
So in the first film, what followed the street race? The cops arrived. So what happens here? The cops arrive. Again everyone flees. The cops manage to capture Brian’s Nissan Skyline GT-R R34.
U.S. Customs agents have an assignment for ex-cop Brian that will wipe his rap sheet clean. They tell him, and us, the plot in no uncertain terms. There is a drug kingpin in Miami of the most lethal and generic variety, one Carter Verone, and Brian shall act as a driver to infiltrate his organization to blah blah blah whatever. So, we have an actual bad guy in this one. Brian is to have a partner, one of his choice. And he selects…
Here is where Vin Diesel should have made his triumphant entrance. Undoubtedly the earlier drafts did so much. This cannot be, so instead let’s change all surface details to justify a new character instead – Roman Pearce, played by Singeton-regular Tyrese Gibson, R&B singer/songwriter and fashion model. We’re a long shot from a former bouncer here. Actually, are we? On paper, both sound a little dubious. Brian recruits Roman from a demolition derby in glamorous Barstow, California. Gone is Part One’s central bromantic tutor/mentor relationship, replaced by the standard buddy cop paradigm. The two initially fight and scrap over a past that I could care less about since it’s not Diesel’s. Whatever power their scenes are supposed to have hinges on the return of an actor who didn’t return. In a sense, Tyrese’s role is useful, since it provides a clear example of what The Fast and the Furious would have been like without Vin Diesel. Flat.
The two team up, both hoping to clear their criminal records. We have more characters to meet, so let’s just zoom through this stuff. Back in Miami is Monica Fuentes, played by Eva Mendes and her lips and breasts and buttocks. She is a mole, and Eva Mendes has a mole. Strangely, in every role I’ve seen Eva Mendes in, she’s played a mole. At least this isn’t played as a plot twist or anything.
Fuentes introduces Brian and Roman to our villain, Verone (Cole Hauser), who seems to be in a competition with Paul Walker to see who can be the blandest.
I find this all very unamusing, so let’s get to the driving. Verone has a challenge for Brian, Roman, and an assembly of red shirt thug racers. Twenty miles away is a red Ferrari 360 Modena with a package; the team who returns the package to Verone can move on to the next stage. It’s “Grand Theft Auto” without the sandboxing. Brian is driving a government-issued yellow Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VII, Roman a purple Mitsubishi Eclipse GTS Spyder. As they race down the freeways, we return to the franchise’s trademark CGI car engine tracking shot. Only this time there is a minor plot purpose to this aggravating stylistic tic, revealing a GPS tracker is in Brian’s engine. And Roman’s too, we intuit. Thus, in a move that has very little bearing on anything, the cops and Roman shoot it out a little once they reach the red Ferrari 360 Modena. For the plot to advance, Brian and Roman must win the action sequence; therefore, they do.
Some 30 odd minutes in, the relative action of Act One is over. Now Verone tells our heroes what the stakes in Act Three are going to be before we can get on to the important business of spinning our wheels during Act Two. The three act structure can be useful, but in a lazy, formula-driven Formula 501 movie like this, it pretty much just means we’re not going to see anything new. But in this style of movie and plot, specifics are what counts. And the specifics here are that Brian and Roman shall be driving Verone’s laundered money across town to his airstrip in the Keys so that blah blah blah whatever.
If I may be allowed to look ahead a little, permit me. Later we learn the cash is hidden in the walls of a trailer park, not under any particularly extreme form of police surveillance. Someone keeping a low profile could collect it right now! The only reason there is a police presence later in the movie is because:
1. Brian and Roman have reported these plans back to their Customs superiors, who then go out of their way to prevent the crime they need to happen.
2. Because Verone himself has bribed a detective to create a 15-minute window. This detective instead later opts to not create the window, and instead brings down the cops that start the chase. All the action in the Third Act depends on this. However, “It’s in the script,” as they say, so...Moving on...
Also, this is all so tediously Miami Vice.
So how exactly do we spin our wheels for the Second Act? A token effort is made to establish “character flaws” for Brian and Roman, lechery and kleptomania respectively. [The remainder of this paragraph deleted due to extreme boredom, awkward syntax.]
And there is an Action Sequence. Naturally. Since Brian and Roman wish to lose their GPS-enhanced cars, they engage two of the red shirts in an out-and-back race for their cars – a Chevrolet Camaro Yenko S/C and a Dodge Challenger R/T. Since winning this action sequence will provide our heroes with the next plot token they need, of course they win it. There is an attempt at suspense, so our heroes are behind for most of the race. Then Brian achieves victory with use of his almighty Sonic Screwdriver, the NOS. My nemesis, the CGI blurring effects from Part One, return, and I wish the filmmakers at least had the wit to reference the 2001 Beyond the Infinite sequence, since this is all nearing that territory anyway.
I may have pointed out the deficiencies in the original’s melodrama, but at least it provided the audience with something unusual for the action genre. This film is all plot mechanics, in support of a standard “Let’s take down the drug dealer” story. And of course we never see anything involving actual drug dealing. Simply say a guy is a drug dealer and, bingo!, you’ve got your villain. And so, per the plot mechanics and the auto mechanics, our heroes have to play by the rules of both the Feds and the baddies. These guys are tools. So Brian gets to making plans. (I keep on misspelling his name as “Brain,” which is surely inappropriate for this guy.) With the aid of the gloriously afroed Tej and his cohorts, they montage out a scheme. We know this scheme is gonna work, because we aren’t told what it is.
The day of the great Vanishing Point, Gone in 60 Seconds, Dirty Mary Crazy Larry, The Blues Brothers, Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000) race arrives. The money is acquired from the trailer park and the cops give chase. A couple more wrinkles:
1. Bargain basement henchmen are riding with Brian and Roman, to oversee Verone’s plan and to give our heroes someone to trade quips with. By the way, the dialogue throughout this flick is out of a video game. Not video game cut scenes, mind you, but those stock phrases your avatar randomly utters in-game.
2. Verone has discovered that Fuentes (Eva Mendes, remember?) is a mole. This is the politically correct way of creating a damsel in distress situation.
3. Verone is going to execute our heroes once they’ve delivered the money. You know, because he’s the bad guy. Our heroes have prepared for this, in that they’ve sent a police SWAT team to the wrong location.
So following a freeway chase that toys with the idea of wrecking cop cars – Wait, I thought this series was about street racing! Lose Paul Walker’s character, whom we’ve never really cared about, and all you have is the action movie the computer spits out before the screenwriter adorns it.
Um, so...the plan! Yeah, Brian’s plan. You see, they drive their yellow Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VII and purple Mitsubishi Eclipse GTS Spyder into a storage facility. The cops surround it. And then – you guessed it – Tej’s whole gang of extras spills out in their street cars, confusing the various interests that are tracking our heroes. Finally the cops catch up with the yellow Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VII and purple Mitsubishi Eclipse GTS Spyder, to discover that –
Brian and Roman are now driving their Chevrolet Camaro Yenko S/C and Dodge Challenger R/T. (I can only assume the money made the transfer too.) So now free of cops, and without that silly 15-minute window the plot was so interested in, our heroes just have to reach Verone. This they do, with a brief detour to dispatch of a thug using an ejector seat – Seriously! Ejector seats, grappling hooks, tiresome “stop the villain” plot. This movie desperately wants to be a bad Bond movie (the only kind of Bond movie that existed in 2003), and that includes the David Arnold score (replacing the enigmatic “BT”).
Final confrontation time. Verone is holding all the metaphorical cards, as is a villain’s wont, escaping with Fuentes and the money aboard a yacht. All our heroes have to do now is pull off the film’s signature climactic stunt, in this case a ramp jump (with NOS, naturally) from the bayous onto the yacht.
In this way, the apparently-villainous Verone is arrested...Wait, arrested?! So one of the red shirt drivers can get crushed underneath the wheels of a big rig, but the villain survives. All the plot threads see closure, except Verone hisses threats at Roman while being led off – I think they wanted to set up a sequel where Verone escapes for revenge, only they haven’t bothered to. Pardoned, our heroes head for the proverbial sunset, showing each other the gigantic wads in their pants – the wads of cash, I mean! Come on!
So, with video gamey animations over the end credits, I am left to consider the film as a whole...Well, it’s a sequel. In a sense. Bigger, more cars, drop in quality, less heart. There seems to be a common first sequel mistake here. The focus on street racing was lost in favor of a fairly generic Miami story, and you don’t need a Fast and the Furious sequel to tell that tale. With no prior knowledge about the third film, Tokyo Drift, I can only assume that it will correct this mistake...
And it will be set in Tokyo...
And there will be drifting.
RELATED POSTS
• No. 1 The Fast and the Furious (2001)
• No. 3 The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)
• No. 4 Fast & Furious (2009)
• No. 5 Fast Five (2011)
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