The Shrine

Last 5 minutes of this movie destroyed me.

How did this series make it to 7...?

I haven't watched a single one though...

kali o. wrote:How did this series make it to 7...?

I haven't watched a single one though...

It almost died after #2 which is an unwatchable piece of shit and a lesson in how not to make a sequel. The first was a pretty solid action movie that was a love letter to the car modding scene, much better than it should have been. After #2, they gave Lin a small budget to do an offshoot that didn't star any of the original cast and was set in Tokyo. What was basically a set-up for a horrible disaster of a film, it was shockingly decent (kinda pulled a Predator 2 on us). With the surprise cameo at the end that didn't seem to be anything, they decided to bring back the entire original cast for #4....and that's when the series completely took off. They changed from being a car movie with lots of action to an action movie with nice cars in it. And that's when Lin started to do Saw-like tie-backs and retcons (#3 took place after #4 to #6 but before #7 in the timeline). No longer trapped by the whole racing scene thing, they just kinda got more and more over the top with each movie and they became fun action movies that seemed to appeal to a bigger audience.

And that's all they really are, fun action films. Kinda like Lethal Weapon 3 and 4, they became more progressively over the top after #4 and don't take themselves seriously at all (Lethal 4 and Furious 7 are almost comically over the top). But it was the reboot in #3 and again in #4 that allowed it to become the biggest action franchise in the world instead of just some car movies with action in them.

I haven't seen any of these. They seem fairly stupid. Can they be enjoyed ironically like Anaconda, Commando, or Evil the Dead series?

They're fun movies for the most part, carried by the actors that play the of characters. The first was great, second was awful, third was so far removed from the series that it's just a footnote. Fourth was a reboot of the series with alot of the original cast, and 5-7 are basically action movies which surprisingly met well with both critics and audiences alike.

Paul Walker died in the middle of production for 7, and he has a very diminished roll as a result(A lot less dialog that's very apparent). So at the end they retire the character in a nice way and they have this super touching ending where they kinda blend the character and actor and Dom(Vin Diesel) says goodbye to his friend. It really tugs at the heart strings because this cast doesn't have the most talented actors in the world, so you can tell they were actually extremely sad about the whole thing. If you've ever lost a friend, not being able to say goodbye is the thing that really kinda lingers, and the way they handle it, and Vin Diesel and the rest of the cast say goodbye is actually touching in a way you wouldn't expect a cheese action film series to get across so well.

It hit 1 billion world wide heh.

So many manly tears in that finale for me

So this movie is the 4th highest grossing film of all time, it's still playing around the world so it MIGHT break 3rd before it is all over. :o

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hi ... sing_films

Yeah, never thought it would touch Avengers....

Guess we're gonna see a #8 now....