INTRODUCTION
So it's the late 2000s, my friend and I are bored of the repeated 90's action flicks and its repeated flicks of the early 2000s, we wanted something new. After having a weird yet spectacular experience with the film The Matrix, we decide to watch the over suggested film that was the talk of the school and decided why not might as well watch it. The movie was called Fast and the furious, and after finishing it we understood the appeal of the film.
Fast forward to a decade later and the movie that was just watched out of peer pressure, and clearly out of boredom, becomes a multi-million dollar movie franchise that becomes even more popular than we expected. A simple movie about a group of street racers who stole from a number of transported trailer trucks full of DVD players to becoming international police/Spys/thieves while fighting James bond esq villains, who have wired plans for world domination.
STORY/NARRATIVE
The story centres around two characters, one is called Dominic Toretto, a real gym type buffed guy, that is known as the strongest street racer, who lives with his sister in a mechanic garage/house and conducts raids like stealing with his street racers friends and girlfriend Letty oritz. The other character is Brian O'Connor an undercover cop that wants to take Dominic to justice but is in love with Dominic sister Mia Toretto. Being a street racer himself, Brian tries to infiltrate Dominic's partners in crime.
Brian decides not to bring Dominic to the law and helps him escape after a final confrontation of a drag race that almost caused Dominic his life. He also helps his childhood friend Roman Pearce from erasing his criminal record. He later officially joins Dominic Toretto after quitting the police force and they go to sprawling criminal adventures like taking down a drug cartel, taking down a terrorist group, taking down a very trained MI6 Agent, to Taking down a hacker with a very wired gadget and many more.
THEMES
The most repeated theme in the film is family and though highly coherent doesn't actually connect it with the overarching narrative. The theme is not well layered and sometimes doesn't fit in with the narrative at all but sometimes it does. I would say the most overarching presentation of the theme would be that humans can overcome any obstacles if they work together as a family. But I think the main aspect is Dominic who is from a single Parenthood family and is in need of a stable family, who wants a family that sticks together through and through.
SPECTACLE
The sprawling issues come when the film franchise, warps the perspective of escapism and how sometimes pushing it too far, might cause problematic issues to the narrative as a whole. For example in the lastest instalment to the franchise F9, the thematic word of a family can be used to really solve every problem imaginable and justify it nonsensical to the highest degree. Do you want to cheat death? Family, Hey! I want to dust myself off after a death-defying stunt that will surely kill me, Family, You know what let's go space, family. This not only kills a good narrative but ruins the spectacle that they themselves established.
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Wow.
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