Life’s biggest questions: Is there a God?…What happens when you die?…What is the secret to life?…Why are “The Fast and the Furious” movies popular?
Answers: Concepts of “God” are structured around an all-knowing and guiding being, and the creation of life (and millenniums of evolution) was probably much more random than that…I really doubt there is an afterlife, although I sure hope there is, and the closest thing is our descendants carrying a genetic code that is part of us…There is no one secret, because different people want different things, but all things in the world—people, animals, robots—are programmed, either with their genes or circuits, and if you can figure out the “bad code” that’s not working and break out of your worst patterns, you’ll be happier…And how are “The Fast and Furious” movies so popular there’s an 8th in the series and they get good reviews and Oscar winners like Charlize Theron or Helen Mirren to be in them? I have no fucking idea. Some mysteries truly have no answers.
What Works: There’s a part of this movie where Charlize Theron’s “white lady with dreadlocks” villainess hacks into seemingly every car in the world and gets some of them to jump out of buildings as obstacles for the good guys. This is something close to nirvana for young boys and the whole movie just might be worth the brain cell loss you’ll surely accure if you can just watch the face of a son or nephew or grandson during this 10 minutes of mindless bliss.
What Doesn’t: There’s a climactic battle on the ice where The Rock literally gets out of a moving Hummer, glides on the ice with just his boots while holding on to a car door, and guides a live missle–that is also just inexplicably gliding on the ice–to a car full of bad guys. At this point, half my brain died on impact and I wasn’t sure I’d be legally smart enough to drive my car home or tie my shoes on the way out of the theater.
What I Would Have Done Differently: These movies are so braindead and repetitive and obnoxious and—and this is the kicker—successful that I’m not sure why Universal Studios is saying the 10th film will be the last one. Why not make 100 of these damn things? Sometime between now and 2060, I’m sure they will have worn me down and I’ll probably be looking forward to the next one on my way to collect a social security check.
Hilarious!