Paul Walker – Tyson Adams

Summarising The Fast and Furious Series

276545-fast-and-furious-fast-and-furious-cars-start-race — Fast and Furious: Car Porn

The Fast and Furious series continues to make money at the box office. I have previously summarised the movies but it is time for an update.

The Fast and the Furious
Vin Diesel and Paul Walker prove that by combining the acting chops of Keanu Reeves and the charisma of Patrick Swayze you can recreate Point Break with cars.
Fun Fact: Boys under 25 were inspired to buy Toyota Supras by this movie. Failing that, they attached hi-flow exhausts to their Hyundai Excel.

2 Fast 2 Furious
Diesel was 2 busy and subsequently introduced Tyrese Gibson to the series. Thus started the series long question “What is he doing here? Is he the comedy relief without the comedy? Why hasn’t he been accidentally shot yet?”
Fun Fact: Someone actually thought you could replace Diesel with Gibson.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
Lucas Black and Bow Wow make Diesel and Walker look like Shakespearean actors. Even with the most cars and jailbait in skirts, we still wonder how this is a Fast and Furious movie.
Fun Fact: This movie got made. No-one is quite sure how.

Fast & Furious
Diesel and Walker return to remind us that as unlikely as it would seem, they make this series work. I’m sure there was a plot and stuff probably happened. Cars exploded though.
Fun Fact: This wasn’t released direct to DVD.

Fast Five
The Rock is introduced and immediately this series becomes awesome. Diesel realises The Rock is in this film and spends the next few films trying to buff up and look half as intimidating as a single eyebrow raise from The Rock.
Fun Fact: The Rock is in this film!!

Fast & Furious 6
The Rock gains an endorsement from Under Armour and Johnson’s Baby Oil to help hold this film together. Characters get resurrected. Others die. We are painfully reminded that street racers are not professional mercenaries.
Fun Fact: Tanks and Planes can be destroyed with sports cars. Engineers and the military are working together to figure out how they got things so wrong.

Furious 7
Hey look, we just made a billion dollars with this movie. Pretty impressive for a movie that is a loosely strung together series of set pieces designed by a kid with a Hot Wheels obsession. The heroes also decide that they want to see how many innocent people they can get caught in the crossfire for the final showdown.
Fun Fact: They actually did a touching send off for Paul Walker.

The Fate of the Furious
The Rock and Jason Statham are now the stars of the series. They have all the coolest scenes and make you gloss over the various characters who have disappeared.
Fun Fact: Did you know that Lamborghinis were bulletproof? Apparently a grappling hook goes straight through the door but not any bullets. Amazing engineering.

Future Fast and Furious movies?

Fast and Furiosa
Charlize Theron returns as the villain. The Rock and Statham join forces to stop the Imperator. Diesel fights for relevance in the series with huge doses of steroids. They probably use cars despite them not making sense for the plot.

Furious and the Walking Dead
CGI advances to the point where Paul Walker is resurrected for the series. This once again gives Vin Diesel relevance to the series. The Rock and Statham pull out the zombie fighting kit and attack the uncanny valley.

Fun Articles, Humor

Fast and Furious series

The other night I was watching the Fast and Furious 6, which is a great story about how The Rock is proving you don’t need CGI for the next Hulk movie. With the announcement and post-credits scene showing they are making Fast and Furious 7, I thought it was worth re-capping the series so far.

1) The Fast and The Furious
This first instalment is pretty much Point Break with cars.

2) 2 Fast, 2 Furious
Also known as The Curious Case of the Missing Vin Diesel.

3) The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift
Who are these people? Why are they driving sideways? Where are Paul and Vin?

4) Fast and Furious: Career Booster
After realising that people still like seeing cars at the movies but are only so-so about Vin Diesel and Paul Walker’s other films, it was time to film some car porn with the original cast.

5) Fast 5: Bicep Showdown
The Rock and Vin Diesel spend two hours showing off their gym time.

6) Fast and Furious 6: The Rock and some cars
The Rock dwarfs everyone on screen and no-one can see the cars clearly.

7) Fast and Furious 7: Back to Tokyo*
We quickly forget that Paul Walker has been a main cast member of the series as Jason Statham, Tony Jaa, Rhonda Rousey, Vin Diesel and The Rock beat the crap out of each other near some cars.

8) Fast and Furious 8: Reasonably Priced Car
Having realised that with all the protein and creatine the stars have been eating they can no longer afford fancy cars, Vin’s crew now rebuild some small hybrid cars to make them capable of a 20 second quarter mile.

9) Fast and Reasonably Furious 9: Repossession
Despite having downgraded to cheaper vehicles, the sheer weight of the bloated continuation of the series leads to the repo-men arriving and taking all the cars. When Vin and his crew confront the repo-men, the repo’s say “This is what we do.”

10) Fast and Not Really Furious 10: Nursing Home Drift
Now confined to wheelchairs and with rapidly deflating biceps, Vin’s crew trick out some wheelchairs and mobility scooters to pass the time between naps.

Update: According to my news feed, Paul Walker died in a car crash after a charity event at age 40. I’ve written before about Paul Walker seeming like a nice bloke who seems to have made it in films by being a decent guy and not because of acting ability. My comments above about the next Fast and Furious movie suddenly take on a new light, so I just hope the next instalment honours Paul’s involvement in the franchise (it was that initial screen chemistry between Paul and Vin that made the first movie a success). I’d already felt the franchise was drifting away from Paul as the main character, hence the joke about the massive ensemble cast above, so let’s hope they do something cool to honour him.

Fun Articles, Humor

Actors you don’t want in your book adaptation

In a previous post I raised the fact that Tom Cruise would be bringing Jack Reacher to the big screen. Now fans of the Lee Child books will be familiar with the 6’5″ Jack Reacher and the general differences he has from Tom Cruise, the most noticeable being that Reacher isn’t crazy. Of course Lee Child isn’t particularly worried because “the movie isn’t for the fans of the book, it is for movie goers.”

This all got me to thinking, I could really do with a nap. When I woke up I was thinking, “which actors would I hate to see playing the lead role in a book adaptation?” I present my list, do you have any others?

11) Nicolas Cage

Cage wasn’t always a horrible actor, he has an Oscar to prove it. But after he started buying castles and octopuses, his work got weirder and weirder, just watch The Wicker Man. He seems determined do his unique combination of drug-fueled mania and totally inappropriate character choices in most every movie.
Update: Conan O’Brian has got in on the joke.

10) David Caruso

David Caruso will be forever remembered as Lt. Horatio Caine on CSI: Miami. It isn’t because of his superb acting, no, rather it is his stunning array of bizarre tics and horrible one-liners he crams into 42 minutes of television every week. Caine is just pure corniness, and Caruso’s just getting worse. Whether he’s doing it on purpose or he’s just given up, this is some spectacularly horrible acting.

9) Jean-Claude Van Damme

I have seen Van Damme act just the once, playing himself, in JCVD. The rest of the time he is in films because he can kick high and do the splits. In fairness most of his movie roles have only required him to kick high and do the splits, but bringing a book to life takes a bit more than that. In JCVD’s favour is the fact that he doesn’t take himself too seriously, having had guest star roles taking the piss out of himself on various TV shows.

8) Hugh Grant

We have a TV channel in Australia called SBS. They show movies from around the world, rather than just Hollywood. They have a great advert that sums up Hugh Grant. They show the same bumbling, um er, insipid, um er, acting he does in every, um er, that is to say, role. I am simply baffled by his popularity. He is a weak, dull, uninteresting man.

7) Ben Affleck

Lets face it, any book adaptation that stars Ben Affleck will be fraught with budgetary over-runs due to acting class costs, hair product and dead hooker disposal.

6) Steven Seagal

He’s played one role – the wise, astute, noble, ass kicker, who only resorts to violence when necessary – for his entire career (except in Machete). He also founded the Steven Segal School of Acting, which prides itself on producing one facial expression for every occasion. As Sean Connery will attest, you shouldn’t try to piss Steven off by suggesting he learn to act.

5) Orlando Bloom

Orlando “one look” Bloom has managed to make a career out of the same facial expression. “Orcs are killing everyone” is the same as his “I’m in love with you Elizabeth Swan” look. He and Kirsten Stewart clearly went to the Steven Segal School of Acting. The only reason he brings characters to life is that he has a heartbeat and can walk, as proven by his work on the LOTR book adaptations.

Update: Orlando Bloom has apparently had the same look since he was a child.

4) Paul Walker

I actually like Paul Walker, he comes across as a friendly, cool guy. Pity that is all he brings to a role. He does have the ability to do many things that Orlando Bloom can’t, but it is still hard to take him seriously in anything dramatic. Maybe it would be cool to hire him for the book adaptation just to hang out with him, but that’s the stalker in me talking.

3) Hayden Christensen

He ruined Star Wars with JarJar Binks, enough said.

2) Tom Cruise

I’ve mentioned before that Tom Cruise has a habit of shouting instead of acting. I’ve also mentioned before that Tom has appeared in a number of good films, but he wasn’t the reason they were good. I’ve also mentioned that Tom will be doing his best to ruin Jack Reacher for Lee Child fans. Short nut-case closed.

1) Keanu Reeves

Is this really a surprise? Did anyone watch The Day The Earth Stood Still and not think a block of wood could have contributed a better acting performance? Actually, aside from Bill & Ted, do you think there is any role he has ever had that couldn’t be improved upon by replacing Keanu with a block of wood? It was a tough decision picking the right photo for this one – on the one hand I had a photo of paint drying, and on the other hand I had a photo of Keanu. While the paint photo was a lot more interesting, I thought I ought to go with this one.