I guess John Wick 4 is better than Fast X? But I haven't seen Fast X, don't know how well it did, and don't know if they're as specifically comparable.
I call that a pick your poison scenario. Both are overblown and go for too long.
but it seems now people are favoring the real deal over the CGI thing. Yeah, tons of CGI go into the John Wicks and Top Guns and Mission Impossibles, but they keep things within the realm of what's humanly possible (bullet-proof Keanu notwithstanding) and therefore doable. BTS footage of Keanu and Tom jumping through the hoops for realsies sells that idea of authenticity.
You can thank the first John Wick and many good to great straight to DVD action films from the late 2000s and 2010s.
It's also why I think people like something like this over something like Fast and Furious. Mission Impossible can be just as ridiculous or nonsensical sometimes, but it never quite jumped the shark the way F&F and Indy did at the time. Sci-fi gadgetry aside, they never stretched the realm of what's humanly (or phyisically) possible so much as pushed the limits. And whenever they do they have the photo evidence to prove it.
The problem with the later
F&F movies after
Furious 7 feel like fan fics and live-action cartoons. No one is in any real danger, and whoever was a bad guy in a previous movie, is now a "good"/decent guy in the following sequel. Bringing back characters who fucking died back to life cheapens each next entry too. I always disliked
F&F6 though, and will never touch anything after
7. Vin Diesel and the rest phoning it in does not help.
You mean the De Palma and John Woo ones? De Palma's was good. Obviously you show it today to Gen Z and it looks like your grandaddy's action flick. But before it was an action movie it had to be a De Palma movie, meaning a sleazier Hitchcock movie, meaning more thrills than action. And John Woo's is your run of the mill early aughts Michael Bay-ish idea of cool and edgy.
The only reason so many people hate on
MI2 was because everything looked silly by the mid-late 2000s, and the execs screwed John Woo out of the editing room. At least Woo fans have/had a justifiable reason to not like the movie. Everyone else was just jumping on the bandwagon hate, or disliking because Limp Bitzkit did part of the soundtrack that's dated. BTW, MI2 is still better than a majority of Bay's bullshit. Yes, even
Bad Boys.
MI III I like fine, but I forget the what plot is every time I watch. Seriously,
@Johnny Novgorod, what's the Rabbit's Foot?!
Fast and the Furious (2001), 4/10
The opening film to probably the most flanderized franchise in movie history after James Bond, this film is very, very tame and low-key compared to what the series is now, or even 10 years ago. It's a very basic, pretty low-stakes story about an undercover cop, and pretty much nothing about it is remarkable aside from being a time capsule of the early 00s, and of course its status as the franchise starter. The script and acting are all quite mediocre, and there's really nothing special about almost any aspect of the filmmaking. The film's two core action setpieces, which come back to back at the very end, are about trying to get an injured guy off the door of a truck, and chasing two guys on mopeds. Followed by an incredibly abrupt ending, which could almost leave on a "to be continued" for how quickly it cuts to credits. That's it.
I guess Dom Toretto is kind of interesting as an ambiguous not-really antagonist, and you do get a sense of him taking a shine to Paul Walker's character. But that's just a few bits among what is the bulk of this film, which is the nerdiest car porn I've ever seen. There's a car in most of the shots in this movie, often as the core focus. There's ridiculous amounts of dialogue about car models, engines, modfications, all of which is just incomprehensible gobbledygook to someone like me. I guess it's interesting to experience what watching a movie about, say, tabletop wargaming would be to someone who's the core audience of this move.
I was intent on going to see the latest instalment right after this just to experience the whiplash, but now I'm kind of intrigued. A youtuber I follow once characterized these movies as anime, and that you have to slog through the early "slow arc" to get an attachment to these characters and really feel the good bits. Since these movies don't really demand your attention, I think the bar for watching a whole 9 other films after this is a lot lower than usual. There's not dense lore or stylistic changes to experience, it's kust cars going vroom and things going boom. I might actually do it.
At its worst, the first
F&F movie is a 7/10. If your rating is a 4, then
2F 2F might as well be a 2. We all know the movie is
Point Break with cars, but it works. It's better
PB remake, than the official
PB Remake. The movie is the most grounded and creates suspense and drama. None of these characters are invincible superheroes. They are at risk of getting hurt or dying. The action scenes are clear, concise, and consistent. Well shot and edited, with none of the bombastic, makes no sense post
F7 nonsense. The characters are more believable here, than in their later appearance. The worst you can say about original was the era it came from, but that is not a net negative.
The soundtrack, while dated, ain't bad. You're either into nu metal, hard rock, or rap/hip-hop from 98-2001 or not.
2Fast 2Furious is all hip-hop from the early 2000s, and
Tokyo Drift has Hip Hop, Techno, Rock, and J-Rock from the 2006 (only slightly dated compared to its prequels). I still say
Tokyo Drift has the best soundtrack out of variety and style alone.
