New fandom! Shiny.

[ivyfic]

Since watching Fast & Furious, I have rewatched The Fast & the Furious. I actually think I only saw the second half of this on TV once, so it made more sense this time through. Not a whole lot of sense, mind you, but more.

I just watched 2 Fast 2 Furious. There are a couple of logical problems with these movies.

One – crashes don't seem to kill people in these movies. There are two car crashes in the first film where the cars are rolled and wind up looking like they've been run over in a monster truck rally, and in both cases, the character gets out with a couple of cuts in designated hero areas. Apparently Vin Diesel has mutant healing powers.

Two – I really don't think the LAPD (and the Miami PD) have the budget to provide an undercover cop with an $80,000 car to investigate a truck-jacking ring. Or several $80,000 cars. They have these things just sitting in their impound lot? Sure.

Three – I'm really sure the LAPD would not let an undercover cop race down crowded streets, at the very least recklessly endangering civilians (in the first film), and at most causing several fatal accidents (in the fourth). Can you say bad PR?

But it's kind of unfair to pick on movies which are just flimsy excuses for cool car chases. Though I'm not a motorhead, I do appreciate those, except for the trippy stretching effect they do that makes it look like our hero has dropped acid.

The second film doesn't attempt to be anything but an excuse for lots of fast cars. You need to introduce our hero? Car race. Have to introduce the sidekick? Demolition derby. Need to meet the target of the undercover assignment? Car race. Need new cars? Car race. And the climax of the movie? Car race followed by a several hundred car scramble followed by a car race followed by a car versus boat race.

For all that there was no substance in 2 Fast 2 Furious, I was entertained. I mean, let's face it, Tyrese is gorgeous. My biggest beef, honestly, is that they have a token female racer and they give her the pinkest car that ever pinked and they paint princesses and bubbles on it. Yes, sure, pink can be an in your face statement of feminism, but in this case I think it's that the art department couldn't think of anything to do with a girl car except make it as Barbie as possible. At least Letty in the first film raced a normal looking car.

The Fast and the Furious has about a half an hour of plot interspersed with the car races, but that half an hour was terribly interesting, if poorly executed. There's a lot of lazy writing in that film, but the characters, particularly Vin Diesel's, with the way he just commands the devotion of his patchwork crew, are fascinating. Fortunately for fandom, the laziness of the writers, in forcing Dom, an extremely reserved character, to expose his innermost fears to Brian, and therefore the audience, makes it impossible to explain this action by any other filter than that Dom is in love with Brian (or at least in lust). It's like Smallville. There is no way to explain the actions of either Brian or Dom without slash. I defy you to try.

I have to say, though, the whole last half hour of the film makes no sense to me. I don't get why Dom would go off and rob a truck while Jesse is running from the Trans. I don't get why the Trans gun down Jesse in the street for not turning over his car. The Trans are bad guys, sure, but a driveby in broad daylight in front of witnesses that will invite either retribution or arrest? That's just stupid. It seems like the writers felt they had to kill a character to add bittersweetness to the movie, and they had to have some reason for Brian to go medieval on the Trans, since they turned out to be a red herring. And then after that, it makes no sense at all to me that Dom then races Brian in the Charger. Just…what? The writers were just trying too hard for symbolism by that point.

I've discovered that tF&tF fandom is great, though. Tons of epic fics that really deal with these characters and the fallout from the film. In the face of that, Fast & Furious seems even more of a pale follow up to the original.

I find it hilarious that on the DVDs you have to watch two or three disclaimers before you get to the film. No, really really don't try to drive like this. Really. It will go badly for you.

Next up Tokyo Drift!

Comments

[linaerys.livejournal.com]

The F&F fandom is fabulous. And there's no way not to love how gay Brian and Dom are for each other. You're right in calling it Smallville syndrome. These two are so freakin' in love. I love when big violent manly men are in love. Well, Paul Walker, not so manly, but he's pretty, and Vin Diesel more than makes up for him.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

And 2 Fast 2 Furious makes the first movie even more gay retroactively. First there's Roman, the childhood friend, who greets Brian by...um...wrestling with him. In an even more gay way than wrestling usually looks. Then there's the fact that Bilkins compares Brian having the hots for the female undercover agent with what happened on his last undercover assignment...when he let Dom go. No mention of Mia. No, just that he thought too much with his dick and let Dom go. Then there's Brian saying that he let Dom go largely because Dom reminded him of what he felt for Roman, then they end the film by setting up a garage together...

I prefer the fanon versions of after the first movie, cause they have Dom in them, but it's not like they did anything in the second film to mitigate the subtext.