With a 10th installment due to be released May 19, there is one movie franchise that is long overdue for an ending. That franchise is none other than “Fast and Furious.”
Also known as “The Fast and the Furious,” the franchise stars one actor who gained fame from the first movie and that is Vin Diesel. Diesel has played a former criminal who fans know as family man Dominic Toretto. Toretto has gone through numerous challenges in his life, from losing lifelong friends to wanting to “live his life a quarter mile at a time.” Diesel hits the big screen yet again this weekend with the release of “Fast X.”
The first movie was released in 2001, and stars Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, and the late Paul Walker. Walker plays FBI agent Brian O’Conner, who is out to investigate stolen mechanical parts used to make illegal modifications to cars. These modifications include infusing vehicles with nitrous oxide, or NOS for short. From there, Toretto and his gang are investigated for hosting illegal street racing events in the streets of Los Angeles. Overall, the plot of the movie is supposed to be about illegal street racing and stealing parts to modify cars.
Over the course of multiple sequels, the Universal Studios franchise storyline takes a dive as characters start fleeing from the law all over the globe from Brazil to even parts of Europe. In “Fast Five,” released in 2011, Toretto and O’Conner encounter hardcore agent Luke Hobbs, played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Hobbs makes it his mission to have a bounty put on Toretto’s head.
“Fast Five” also features the return of characters such as Tej Parker and Roman Pierce. Both characters made their debut in the second installment, “2 Fast 2 Furious,” but they weren’t cast in movies three and four. Then there’s actress Gal Gadot and actor Sung Kang. Gadot plays Gisele Yashar and Kang plays Han Lue. They turn out to be love interests after the sixth installment.
Where the movies get tricky is when characters start dying off and then get revived from the dead. Examples of characters getting revived from the dead are Letty Ortiz, played by Michelle Rodriguez, and Han Lue. Ortiz was thought to be shot and killed in an undercover mission in the fourth installment, “Fast & Furious,” but it turns out she survived and has amnesia.
In Han Lue’s case, he was killed off in the third installment, “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift,” but reappears in the following three installments. Audiences find out at the end of the sixth installment that “Tokyo Drift” was actually set in the future between installments six and seven in the franchise timeline, which explains how Lue is still alive following his death in the third film. Of course, that doesn’t stop Lue from reappearing yet again in the ninth movie, even though audiences clearly see Lue killed inside his car after it flipped in a chase scene and exploded with him inside it. Audiences learn in the ninth film that his death was faked.
“Characters who are obviously killed on screen should stay dead and not be revived because it confuses moviegoers and makes the storyline unclear.”
The main problem with these movies is there are too many plot details that make it confusing to know who’s dead and who’s alive. Characters who are obviously killed on screen should stay dead and not be revived because it confuses moviegoers and makes the storyline unclear. And that’s only the beginning. Characters also pull off ridiculous stunts, like driving on ice trails to get away from nuclear submarines and then launching into space. These scenes came in the eighth and ninth installments.
The franchise should’ve ended after number seven. “Furious 7” gave the perfect ending to the franchise because it was right after actor Paul Walker passed away. For those who don’t know, Walker died in 2013 in a car accident in which the Porsche he was riding in burst into flames after the driver lost control and crashed into a pole. Known to be the heart and soul of the franchise, the films did not have the same feeling or appeal after the loss of Walker. His death provided the perfect sendoff to end the franchise, but now there’s a 10th installment being released this weekend, an 11th film due out in 2025, and talk of more installments after that. It seems viewers will have to wait and see which characters will get killed off and which ones will come back to life. It’s time for this franchise to end.
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to New Mexico State University, the NMSU Department of Journalism and Media Studies, Kokopelli, or any other organization, committee, group or individual.
