Why So Furious?

I honestly thought that the highlight of my Saturday was going to be the premiere of the new Fast & Furious trailer. But then I got a message from a friend, whom I haven't heard from in awhile and... well, it's really, really close. As soon as I could, I shared the video on my Facebook page with the caption, "My other favorite superhero franchise."

Justin Lin will make you believe a man can fly

What is it about this franchise (which gave us one of the greatest exchanges in cinema history: "How did you know there'd be a car there to break our fall?" "I took a leap of faith.") that keeps people coming back for more? According to Box Office Mojo, the sixth installment made $97,375,245 in its first weekend. Think about that for a moment. Not counting science fiction or horror series, how many movies have gotten five sequels? And still made money? Rocky Balboa, the sixth movie in that series, only made $70,270,943 total.



A quick look at my Facebook shows that more than half of my friends who "like" Fast & Furious are female. While that may or may not say more about the male/female ratio of my Facebook friends than anything, we aren't here to talk about that. The point is, the audience for these movies goes beyond guys who want to see flying cars, flipping tanks, and scantly clad women. Besides, as duds like The Need for Speed and Torque remind us, really fast vehicles and violence do not a successful series make.

If you haven't watched the new trailer yet, now would be a good time.

The secret to franchise's success is spelled out in Dom's line, "I don't have friends. I got family." I think drinking games have been built around the use of the word "family" in these movies. A couple weeks ago I talked about how the best stories are about relationships. While Paperman does more in seven minutes than the Fast & Furious can do in seven movies, the reason they both matter (to me, anyway, and I believe legions of fans) is same.

Someone once said that every man is alone is alone in his own mind. Or maybe I just said that. I don't know, and Google isn't helping me. Anyway, now it's been said. We all feel alone in our innermost thoughts, but we were made for community. Words like "team" and "family" are tossed around in the Fast and Furious movies quite a bit, because these people are more than just impartial mercenaries. Dom and Brian are brothers. Brian and Mia are lovers. These people clearly care about each other. And it's shown so clearly that the filmmakers never have to tell us (though they do, and, "He said family again, so DRINK!).

If the Fast and Furious movies can teach us anything, it's that developing meaningful relationships between characters is a key to good storytelling.

Flying cars, flipping tanks, and scantly clad women don't hurt, either.

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