Fast X will be wrapping up its first week at the box office today, and fans of this off-the-chain franchise will be happy to have eaten as well as they always have with this latest entry.
Indeed, being as much of a laugh-out-loud roller-coaster as its predecessors, Fast X has proven that not even unprecedentedly high stakes can extinguish the delightful, sub-subtextual attitudes that make these movies what they are.
Despite this being an evergreen approach to making entertaining movies, one also has to consider just how much Vin Diesel and company have gotten away with two decades of sheer nonsense; speaking frankly, the Fast movies have no business being this big, so how did we get here?
Of course, I know why, you know why, and so does everybody else, including longtime star Ludacris, who recently appeared on the Daily Loud podcast to explain why people need to stop asking why the The Fast Saga has gone on for so long.
That’s right; the reason the property has swelled to the number of movies it has now is because those movies have made billions of dollars, and if there’s one thing even the most casual moviegoer knows, it’s that a good bottom line will almost always guarantee a follow-up film or nine.
It’s somewhat of a depressing reality, to be sure; the state of the industry effectively means that good art comes secondary to lucrative products. Nevertheless, the Fast family have created something special here, however unorthodox it also is, so we’ll gladly plug in for more of this self-aware, chrome-plated fun when the times comes.