Crash course
Get yourself up to speed on best one-liners and crazy stunts from Fast and Furious series
The Fate of the Furious is the eighth movie in a series that has spent 16 years proving that any premise, no matter how basic, can be inflated into a big complicated universe. It started as a simple story about guys who like to drive souped-up cars. With every sequel, the plots got wilder, the stunts got more elaborate and the cast got bigger — plus there’s one character who died in an earlier movie and was alive in the sequels.
But you shouldn’t need to do your homework before going to a movie about deep-voiced guys driving like maniacs. So as a public service, we present a guide to all you really need to know about the first seven films: what their gimmick was, what the best stunt was and what was going on with the late Paul Walker at any given moment. Now you can enjoy two hours of car chases with the knowledge that you haven’t missed anything . . . except some cool stunts.
The Fast and the Furious (2001) Gimmick: There are cars. They drive fast. This was a novelty in 2001. Vin Diesel: A lovable fast-driving crook. Paul Walker: A lovable fast-driving cop. Best stunt: Vin Diesel’s Dodge flips over and flies over Paul Walker’s Toyota. Greatest line: “I like the tuna here.”
2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) Gimmick: More fast driving, but in Miami instead of Los Angeles. And it’s lit like a Miami Vice episode. Vin Diesel: Not in it. Paul Walker: A former cop, pretending to be a crook. Introducing: Tyrese Gibson as Paul Walker’s friend. Ludacris as a guy who likes to raise drawbridges. Greatest stunt: Paul Walker jumps a raised drawbridge, sailing over his competitor’s car. Greatest line: “I didn’t know pizza places made motors.”
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) Gimmick: The Karate Kid, but with cars. Vin Diesel: A cameo at the end. Paul Walker: Not in it. Introducing: Lucas Black as the poor man’s Paul Walker. Sung Kang as a philosophical snack-food addict. Best stunt: A car gets onto a circular ramp and drives around it — sideways. Greatest line: “So if you don’t drift to win, what do you drift for?”
Fast & Furious (2009) Gimmick: Bringing back Vin Diesel and Paul Walker. Vin Diesel: Avenges his girlfriend’s death by driving very fast. Paul Walker: A cop again, but he becomes a crook later. Introducing: Gal Gadot (now Wonder Woman) as a Mossad agent who works for a drug smuggler. Biggest stunt: Vin Diesel drives his Chevy directly into a bad guy, and pops a wheelie while he’s doing it. Greatest line: “Maybe you’re not the good guy pretending to be a bad guy. Maybe you’re the bad guy pretending to be the good guy.”
Fast Five (2011) Gimmick: The crew goes to Brazil to pull a heist. A.k.a. Diesel’s Eleven. Vin Diesel: Helps steal a vault from a police station. Paul Walker: A crook who plans to retire after one last heist. Introducing: Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson as a cop. Best stunt: Vin and Paul race through Rio de Janeiro dragging the vault behind them, and the vault crashes into a bank. Irony! Greatest line: “Don’t ever, ever let them get into cars!”
Fast & Furious 6 (2013) Gimmick: The crew stops a bad guy from obtaining a WMD. They’ve gone from fast-driving crooks to globe-trotting superheroes. Vin Diesel: Finds out his dead girlfriend is alive now. Paul Walker: A crook, but a good crook who goes undercover as a bad crook. Introducing: Luke Evans as a bad guy with a vaguely evil accent. Best stunt: The bad guy drives a tank. The good guys use their cars to make the tank flip over. Greatest line: “If you want the career-changing big fish, you’ve got to be willing to put on the big-boy panties and sail out to the deep water.”
Fast 7 (2015) Gimmick: Mostly that they completed it even after Paul Walker died in a car crash. Vin Diesel: Misses Paul Walker. Paul Walker: Drives forever in our hearts. Introducing: Jason Statham as Luke Evans’s evil brother. Best stunt: Several cars drive out of a moving plane. Fortunately, all the cars are equipped with parachutes. Greatest line: “The thing about street fights, the street always wins.”