7/10

June 23, 2016

In honor of the 15 year anniversary showing, I decided to post a review of the original The Fast and the Furious. I went to see it in theaters yesterday. It was originally released June 22, 2001, when I was only 13. I saw it in theaters then and have seen it several times since then, but decided to see it again for the nostalgia of it. It still holds up to the now six other installments in the franchise for a couple different reasons.

The film is directed by Rob Cohen and starts Paul Walker as Brian O’Conner and Vin Diesel as Dominic Toretto. Brian as a cop must go undercover into the street racing world to try and stop a semi-truck smuggling ring. Accidentally, he becomes overly engulfed in their world, befriends Dominic, and falls for his sister, Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster). He struggles to decide between his new street racing family or the police force. It still is one of the biggest car racing movies out of the franchise.

In recent years, while still highly enjoyable, they have become more like superhero films and focus less on cars. This installment focuses on cars throughout the movie. It is one flashy car after another. As a big domestic car fan, I wish it would have featured more domestic cars, but Dominic’s Dodge Charger remains one of the coolest franchise cars to date. It also can be pretty funny in parts because some of the lines are so bad. I’ve been working on cars for over ten years so when they talk about cars some parts are hilariously unrealistic and don’t make any logical sense. The humor now is actually a big part of the appeal if you are knowledgeable about cars.

The focus on cars, the racing, and the humor all make this installment still hold up to the rest of the franchise. If you are a fan of the franchise and still haven’t seen the original, it is definitely worth watching to see where it all started.