It took more than eight years for Justin Lin to finally get Paul Walker (Brian O’Connor), Vin Diesel (Dominic Toretto), Michelle Rodriguez (Letty Ortiz) and Jordana Brewster (Mia Toretto) back together in his second Fast and Furious film (more to come on his first installment in the future). The four main characters from the 2001 hit, The Fast and the Furious, get back together for a new action-packed installment of the franchise. The film begins with a scene reminiscent of the first film. It shows Dom, Letty and a new group of bandits, of which Sung Kang’s Han Seoul-Oh is a part, boarding a moving truck (this time carrying oil). The group sees its fair share of difficulties but they ultimately find themselves successful and the team disbands. The disbandment of this team is what fuels the rest of the film. This film sees Dom and O’Connor team up, once more, in an attempt to take down a notorious drug lord, Arturo Braga (John Ortiz). They, of course, find themselves in tons of trouble which leads to insane car chases, high-powered action and new relationships (both good and bad) that will help the future of the franchise flow. Throughout these hardships Lin made one of his biggest mistakes during his tenure with the Fast and Furious franchise, he managed to turn Brian’s character into someone of a weakling. He regularly finds himself on the losing end of fights, banged up and in need of the support of his comrades. This twist took something away from this character and I am sure that I was not the only one who was truly disappointed with this decision. This is one of the slowest films in the franchise, as it takes nearly an hour for the story to develop in a way that was paramount to the film. Even though this film moved much slower than would be expected from this franchise, Lin makes up for this by making numerous references to the original film. By referencing things such as Dom’s love for Corona, the debt of a ten-second car and the fact that O’Connor is a “buster,” Lin was able to draw in fans of the franchise and get them excited for future installments. He not only made it a point to reference the original film as much as he could (without going overboard), he set the franchise up to be successful for the next twelve years. Like 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003), this film was, in many ways, one of the most important of the franchise. With the introduction of many characters that would star in future installments (Gal Gadot’s Giselle, Tego Calderon’s Tego and Don Omar’s character of the same name) and subtle hints at where those characters would travel in future installments, Lin not only drew audiences back in with the resurrection of past successes but prepared them for six more films. As an introductory film, this film’s mediocre success at the box office may have stalled the franchise, but as a fourth installment, with characters that millions had already come to love, the film was a necessary “flop” in order to ensure the future would be bright. Lin did enough with this film to land him roles in the production of many more films in the franchise. This film was ultimately the spark that led to one of the most successful franchises in film history. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1013752/?ref_=tt_sims_tt
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