Fast & Furious Franchise Rankings
The film industry has evolved. Specifically, the action movie genre. When the first Fast & Furious movie came out in 2001, the trendy style was still to cut quickly from action, CGI was still pretty laughable, and Vin Diesel had already been the voice for one large and emotionally intelligent robot. Now with less than a week until the ninth Fast & Furious movie comes out (or at least the ninth not considering the spinoff with the Rock and Jason Statham), CGI is pretty high quality now, the action involved longer cuts that let us understand what’s happening, and Vin Diesel is actually the emotionally expressive robot who has a beef with the Rock. Man, time flies. But with the ninth (and maybe on the of last movies) movie coming out, I figured I should rank all of these movies and talk about them a bit. It’s a bummer that there’s only nine movies, we’re just short of one perfect rankings number: TEN. And any movie reviewer worth their salt knows that you should only rank things in groupings of ten!
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#9 - Fast & Furious (2009)
You would expect the movie that reunites Walker and Diesel would get me way more hyped. WRONG!!! They are almost never on screen together, and killing of Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) puts Toretto into a negative place the kills the usually lighter vibe of these movies. Also the action cinematography isn’t that good by comparison to the later entries in the franchise.
4/10.
#8 - 2 Fast 2 Furious
The only great thing this movie has going for it is the title. The action seems even more dated from the original and not bringing back Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) to pair with Paul Walker’s Bryan was not the best idea. Their dynamic is what drives the majority of these movies. Plus at one point Bryan says this. At least Roman is introduced.
4/10. This ain’t it, chief.
#7 - The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
This movie is the biggest pivot in the entire franchise. A hick from the sticks (who has no connection with Toretto’s crew) goes to Tokyo and learns how to drift race. The stakes are a lot lower here like the first entry, and I can’t even remember the name of the protagonist in this one. We did get to meet Han though, and the first race through the developing subdivision is awesome and has one of the more destructive endings.
5/10.
#6 - Fast & Furious Six
At this point the franchise had fully pivoted into the ridiculousness that it was intended to be. We have drag racing cars trying to stay on pace with an airplane, the Rock and Diesel team up, and there’s the whole subplot with Letty being a amnesiac terrorist/thief. But when you think about how ridiculous the final chase/fight scene is where they have a chase on an airplane runway, it falls off a bit.
6/10.
#5 - Hobbs and Shaw
Is this in the main story? Nope. Does it have the two most marketable movie stars in this franchise? Heck yeah, it does! Listen just throwing the magneticism of the Rock and Jason Statham in a movie is a great idea. It’s definitely a cash cow, putting it in the Fast & Furious universe only make it even cooler. It’s simple and enjoyable.
6/10.
#4 - Fate of the Furious
This was the franchise finally going a little too far with the insane action. Roman literally drives a Lamborghini on the artic tundra, they fight off a nuclear submarine with said cars, an AI controls a fleet of cars in New York City, and the rock somehow pushes a torpedo into another car just by touching it. Oh yeah, Toretto turns on his team because of a son he didn’t know he had with his old girlfriend before Letty came back from the dead. Charlize Theron is in it. There’s a lot going on here. It’s still fun, but it can be overwhelming.
6/10.
#3 - Fast Five
Now we’re starting to get into the good ones. The team robs a gangster’s of his money by LITERALLY DRAGGING A BANK VAULT THROUGH THE STREETS OF RIO DE JANEIRO!!! The Rock and Deisel get a nice fist to cuffs fights as the only people that can stand to each other in terms of fame. The action levels are still great as well with the team pulling off the train heist. Oh yeah, young Wonder Woman is here too.
7/10.
#2 - The Fast and the Furious
The one that started it all. It has to get credit for what it’s done. You immediately understand that Toretto might have some shady interests, but he is by no means a bad guy. And it’s interesting that this early in the show, Brian was the protagonist. And he had some complicated character changes.
7/10.
#1 - Furious 7
This movie is a miracle. Honestly, it probably should’ve been scrapped considering the tragic passing of Paul Walker. Reworking his character and doing visual affects to keep Walker’s character in the movie is incredibly impressive. Plus we get Statham here for the first time, and he is really the best match of a villain in my opinion. The whole cast plays well together and has great comedic and dramatic timing together.
7/10.
Well I hope you guys agreed with the list. Honestly, I didn’t see these movies until like a month ago when my wife and I binged them together to prepare for F9. It’s not the greatest franchise ever, but it is a fun one.
Until I watch another nine movies about Vin Diesel driving fast cars.