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New Escapist Column! On How “F9” is All “Family” and No Heart…

Posted on June 25, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of F9: The Fast Saga this weekend, it seemed like an opportunity to take a look at one of the paradoxes of the movie.

The Fast and Furious is a franchise about “family.” It is woven into the fabric of the franchise, and very directly into the plot of the latest film. This makes it all the more frustrating that F9 is completely lacking any humanity. With changes to the cast and weird structural choices, F9 has lost touch with the central appeal of the franchise and cut itself off from the warmest members of the ensemble. F9 is a strangely heartless movie about family.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: f9: the fast saga, fast and furious, Paul Walker, the fast and furious, the rock, Vin Diesel | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: F9 – The Fast Saga

Posted on June 24, 2021 by Darren

They say “start as you mean to go on.” So it seems appropriate that F9: The Fast Saga opens with a car crash.

The ninth installment in the Fast and Furious franchise arrives at an interesting time in the run of the series. Vin Diesel has announced that it might be time to retire the franchise, following a closing trilogy worthy of the characters. After much internal drama, two of the franchise’s core characters have spun out into their own franchise with Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw. The series is also still coming to terms with the passing of Paul Walker, who was the glue that held the franchise together. After all, what are Roman and Tej doing on the team now that Brian is gone?

Back in the ‘burgh.

Perhaps understanding that this is a tumultuous time for the Fast and Furious series, F9 makes a number of obvious plays for safe and familiar ground. Justin Lin returns as writer and co-director, a veteran of the franchise who helmed the four films between Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and Fast and Furious 6. Lin directed Fast Five, which is probably the best film in the franchise, existing at the perfect intersection between the series’ origins as a gritty urban western and the bombastic blockbuster behemoth that it would become.

F9 clearly and repeatedly attempts to recapture some of the magic of Fast Five, but only serves to demonstrate that the franchise can’t go home again.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: cars, fast and furious, film, john cena, Movie, non-review review, Paul Walker, review, soap oepra, the fast and the furious, Vin Diesel | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Brick Mansions

Posted on April 30, 2014 by Darren

Brick Mansions is an incredibly stupid film. It’s a movie that doesn’t make any real sense. It hinges on a series of set-ups and reversals that don’t even hold together while watching the movie. Anybody expecting an action movie that makes any semblance of sense is probably best advised to look elsewhere. And yet, despite this, there’s a point where the sheer unrelenting absurdity of Brick Mansions becomes fun in a grindhouse “this is probably great fun at 2am” sort of way.

At its heart, Brick Mansions feels like a throwback to a very particular style of eighties science-fiction cinema. It’s an action movie with the faintest trace of a social conscience that really exists just to justify ridiculous plot developments and excuse a central story that makes absolutely no sense. Lacking the awareness or intelligence that defined the best of the socially-conscious eighties science-fiction action films, Brick Mansions feels a lot like the kind of guilty pleasure that eats up the airwaves at the most unsocial broadcast hours.

You don’t need that to make out the plot holes…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: action movie, brick mansions, Detroit, eighties, film, Movie, non-review review, Paul Walker, review, RZA | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Fast & The Furious 6

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Darren

The ideal The Fast & The Furious film could only properly be summated with hand gestures and poorly improvised sound effects. “Rrrrrrr….” and then (wavy hand movement) and then “smack!” and then (index finger jams into opposite palm), followed a “bb’tccccch…” and (outward gesture of hand indicating explosion). Fast Five came close to being that perfect macho car chase film, one less concerned with plot and performance than a riveting high-octane spectacle treating its human cast as much like props as the vehicles they drive.

The Fast & The Furious 6 backs away a great deal from the charm of the previous film. There’s the same dumb action set pieces delivered in a charmingly intense manner by Justin Lin, but the script feels over-plotted. There are lots of big emotional moments between an ensemble that really wasn’t built to give those sorts of performances. There are lots of shocking revelations from events several films earlier. There are lots of personal conversations where Lin has no idea what to do with the camera but circle around his actors and hope that the audience doesn’t get too bored.

Not so fast…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: arts, fast & furious, Fast & Furious 6, Fast Five, film, GoldenEye, Index finger, Interpol, Justin Lin, Lin, London, Luke Evans, Michelle Rodriguez, Movie, non-review review, Paul Walker, review, Vin Diesel | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Fast Five

Posted on June 26, 2012 by Darren

Fast Five reminds me a lot of the kinds of cars that its leads drive. Now, please excuse me if the metaphor is a bit clunky. I know nothing of cars. However, whenever we cut to inside one of these enhanced driving machines, it’s clear that virtually every unnecessary component has been stripped out in order to make room for more relevant pieces of equipment. The passenger seat, for example, has been removed and replaced with some canisters I can only assume allow the car to go faster. In many ways, Fast Five feels a bit like that. I knows exactly the film that it wants to be, and it knows exactly what it needs to be that sort of film. Anything else – whether wit, sophistication or character development – is all just dead weight between fast one-liners, impressive action sequences and effective stunt work. And, I am not ashamed to admit, I actually quite enjoyed it on its own terms.