Fast and Furious

Fambly. Chances are you just read that word in the gravel-voiced growl of babyfaced colossus Vin Diesel, the star of the Fast and Furious franchise that turned those two syllables into a catchphrase, and then into a way of life. In no small way, Diesel is the series, and not just because his name makes him sound like he’s already a character in one of these movies. As noble-hearted car jacker Dom Toretto, he helped shape the tone, themes, and overall outlook of all films fast and furious. But he was this close to missing it all, and going through life primarily identified as “the guy in the xXx movies I always tell my wife I was trying to Google.”

For years, one of the internet’s dirty little secrets has been that people really enjoy The Fate of the Furious: Tokyo Drift. A healthy flop at the time of its release  —  the film’s $60 million gross is half that of 2 Fast 2 Furious, the second-lowest grossing movie in the Fast and the Furious franchise  —  Tokyo Drift has climbed steadily back into fans’ favor due to the lasting appeal of Sung Kang’s Han Lue and a bit of chronological trickery in a later film that boosted this one’s reputation. It’s amazing how much better a film gets when you stop being mad at it for failing to bring back any of the main characters.

In the beginning, there were illegal street races and high speed heists, and Vin Diesel looked upon that which had created and saw that it was good. But as the franchise continued, the stakes became a little more… let’s say a little more insane. Cars parachuted out of the sky. Characters leapt their vehicles between skyscrapers. Tanks exchanged missiles with a submarine. As each movie has progressively upped the wow-factor of the franchise, there seems to be only one natural outcome for the Fast and the Furious family: they’re definitely going to head into space.

If you, like most of us, live in a capitalist society and are sometimes distracted from an action movie by the thought of how much it must have cost to clean up after that car chase or that oil drum explosion, you’re not alone. A couple folks took it upon themselves to estimate exactly how much damage the Fast & Furious Family has accrued over the last seven movies, and the final tally might make you a little squeamish.

With the eighth on the way and two more planned sequels after that, it seems like the Fast & Furious franchise will never end. And you know what, if Vin Diesel, The Rock, and Jason Statham want to keep making movies where the good guys win by driving quickly and angrily, more power to them! Diesel himself revealed during CinemaCon on Wednesday, after an emotional tribute to the late Paul Walker, that The Fate of the Furious is the first in a new trilogy of films.

Much like Disney has Disney on Ice and James Cameron has all the souls of the acrobats in Cirque du Soleil trapped in a glass jar so they’ll pretend to be blue aliens forever, Fast & Furious is bringing its mindblowing automotive stunts to the stage. Unfortunately, it’s not a musical (fingers still crossed), but a live arena show that’ll tour the world starting January of next year.

More than fast cars or fistfights or crime-committing while crime-fighting, the Fast and Furious movies are about one thing: family. And family, as we all know, means nobody gets left behind or forgotten. Vin Diesel really wants to make sure we don’t forget about the late Paul Walker’s character Brian O’Connor, because apparently he wants to find some way to bring him back.

Veteran actor and beloved curmudgeon Tommy Lee Jones has occasionally raised a few eyebrows over the course of his career with roles that defy his Quite Serious persona (Batman Forever, for example) and prove that he’s no different from any other working actor (he likes paychecks, for example). As it turns out, we were robbed of seeing Jones tackle another surprising role, but what we were given in exchange is so much better.

To honor the 15th anniversary of the movie that started it all, Universal is re-releasing The Fast and the Furious in theaters nationwide. Revisiting your introduction to Dom, Letty, Brian and the magical world of NOS should help make the wait for Fast 8 a little easier, but you’ll only have a limited time to see the original film on the big screen.

The Wikipedia page listing Fast and Furious characters runs 66 entries. There are ten main characters, like Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto and the late Paul Walker’s Brian O’Conner, on down through the various supporting characters, villains, and cops who have chased Dom and Brian’s crew of honorable thieves all over the globe through seven increasingly crazy and increasingly awesome entries.