Why do audiences keep returning to the ‘Fast & Furious’ series?
Fast X, the latest film in the Fast & Furious franchise, was released worldwide on May 19th and marked the tenth entry to the hugely popular, multi-billion dollar series. Beginning with The Fast and the Furious over 20 years ago, the string of high-octane and high-budget films had its origins rooted firmly in the world of illegal street racing. It has since made an alarming departure from the genre, dividing fans like no other franchise, and yet the box-office returns simply don’t lie: fans keep returning to the Fast & Furious.
The first four films followed LAPD agent Brian O’Conner, famously played by the late Paul Walker, infiltrating a street-racing gang led by Vin Diesel’s character Dominic Toretto. Playing out similarly to Point Break, swapping the sub-culture of surfing for souped-up cars, The Fast and the Furious right through to Fast & Furious had O’Conner understanding and ultimately becoming a part of the lifestyle of those he had initially infiltrated.
Initially based on Racer X, an article by writer Ken Li in a 1998 issue of Vibe magazine, the first film utterly adhered to its premise of car theft and illegal races, with each sequel gradually broadening its scope. Diesel dipped out of the franchise for the subsequent 2 Fast 2 Furious and The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift, which focused on a different group and place entirely.
When the main group of O’Conner, Toretto and Letty Ortiz returned for the fourth instalment, it signified what would be the final time the films were truly focused on car culture — and even Fast & Furious was pushing it, introducing a revenge plot and a larger-than-life drug trafficking villain.
With Fast Five, the franchise gave up outright on its core concept, and the film gave us a plot involving a $100million heist, as well as introducing fist fights, shoot-outs and global espionage; elements that would come to define the series from that point on. In either a very cynical move or an incredibly smart one, depending on how you look at it, Universal Pictures made a very conscientious effort to bring the series out of their previously niche area into a much broader area of cinema, alienating some fans whilst bringing in a huge new swathe of cinemagoers.
It was ultimately the success of Fast Five that cemented what the franchise would henceforth be, and whilst the departure of the series is often bemoaned by car/racing aficionados, the mind-boggling profit that the films keep making says a huge amount about audience habits and cinema in general. It is quite likely that, had the series immediately launched with Fast Five, either as an early iteration back in 2001 or as it stood in 2009, fans wouldn’t have sunk their teeth into it in the same way.
Why is Fast & Furious still so popular?
Much like any long-running TV series, or even your average soap opera, once fans have committed to an ensemble cast and the established dynamics between them, the creators really can play fast and loose with what sort of adventures their characters get into. So when, for instance, the Fast & Furious crew drive a car in space or dodge missiles on the Arctic Tundra, despite audiences moaning and rolling their eyes, they stick with it. As much as they joke about it, they have grown to love “The Family”, and to give the newest entry a miss would be like flaking out on an old friend.
Moreover, the increasingly ludicrous and physics-defying antics of Torreto, Dwayne Johnson’s Luke Hobbs, et al. incite a sort of gleeful hysteria from the fans. When O’Conners caws, “Dom, cars don’t fly!” and the two proceed to drive through not one but two skyscrapers, destroying priceless ancient antiques along the way, they are fulfilling a sort of prophecy generated by fans’ reactions to previous movies, guessing how crazy the next one can get. Even stars want to get in on the action, too!
Ultimately, audiences love it. They love mindless entertainment and huge spectacle and straight-up cartoonish levels of action — but only if there’s soul. And, as a pure residual byproduct of longevity and the result of knowing the characters for 20 years, the films do have soul. Or perhaps the filmmakers are actively injecting the movies with that abstract yet palpable element that can make or break a film — at this point, it’s hard to tell. One thing is for certain, though: fans keep returning to Fast & Furious and judging by Fast X’s success, they don’t plan on stopping.
