Fast and Spurious

It's a little late to be noting the rise in popularity of franchise films (for both the studios and movie patrons) as a sign of the Apocalypse. We're a decade into this mind-numbing trend, and we've only got ourselves to blame. So "Bring It On" has three sequels (all straight to DVD), and American Pie has had four (the last three straight to DVD). I think it's fair to say that there has never been a franchise whose fourth installment had any sort of merit, artistic value or cultural significance (NOTE - Star Wars: Episode IV does not count as a fourth installment). But this past weekend, as I found out that the fourth installment of a film franchise shattered box office records, I reconsidered whether it was finally time to invest in a cabin next a lake and finally give up on society.

Fast & Furious embodies a creativity in sequel naming that we haven't seen since Christopher Reeves was playing Superman (The Fast and the Furious [2001], 2 Fast 2 Furious [2003], The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift [2006], Fast & Furious [2009]). The fact that this franchise can retain relevance by recycling scripts and only changing articles and conjunctions ought to be our first indication that there may be some significant mind decay going on - but the numbers tell a different story. Target consumers are lapping up this brain candy like day old doughnuts at the 7-Eleven.

From CNN.com (and Entertainment Weekly):

In the first truly shocking box office result of the year, "Fast & Furious" sped away from expectations to gross a humongous $72.5 million, according to early estimates from Media by Numbers.

That result is effectively double what most industry observers had predicted for the debut of the fourth feature in Vin Diesel's car franchise, and it left in the dust a number of notable records:

- Best April opening ever, beating "Anger Management's" $42.2 million.

- Best Universal Pictures opening ever (three-day), beating "The Lost World: Jurassic Park's" $72.1 million.

- Best F&F franchise opening ever, beating "2 Fast 2 Furious'" $50.5 million.

- Best opening yet in 2009, easily beating the bows of the more-buzzed-about "Monsters vs. Aliens" ($59.3 million) and "Watchmen" ($55.2 million).

And yet, "truly shocking" just doesn't seem to really capture how this news made me feel. Along with skinny jeans, The Hills and Uggs, the street racing of "sport import" cars is additional proof that I've begun to make the transition from young and hip to fiscally responsible and social irrelevance.

But let me back up. Despite what I imagine to be the global reach of this forum, I expect that most of you have no idea what these movies are about. So let me provide a brief synopsis: the height of badassery is achieved by taking a $12,000 car (Acura, Honda, etc.) putting six figures worth of performance gear, neon lights, obscene paint jobs, shininess and noise production equipment on it and then racing it in the city streets with no regard for human life. As it turns out, performing in this way will: (a) get you the hot girl, (b) allow you to always narrowly escape capture by the hapless police, and (c) make all manner of thugs and miscreants not only elect not to kick your ass, but also give you what the kids like to call "mad props".

Don't get me wrong, I'm not ready to start camping out on my front porch with shotgun full of "salt rock" to chase the neighborhood kids of my property (although, the thought of being "Crazy Old Man Truitt" does bring a little smile to my face). I understand that street racing, and fast cars has always been purveyance of American youth. For God's sake, the title of this ill-conceived franchise was taken from a 1939 movie about a race between a 1935 Chev and a 1939 Hot Rod Lincoln. I remember the hot rods that dotted the landscape of my high school parking lot, and the intense envy I felt. But I also remember a few important characteristics of these cars and times that distinguish them from the current trend:

1. The cars were older models that were "fixed up" and "hot rodded" by the "gearheads" that owned them, usually on their own dime, that they had earned from their part-time job.

2. If they were loud, it was because they had an obscene engine in them that made them obscenely fast.

3. If they were racing them, they were doing at the local 1/4 mile track (Bandimere Speedway for you Colorado types), or on some very desolate country road, where only things they could disturb/damage were themselves, some barbed wire fences and a smattering of assorted livestock.

The cars in these movies would cost in excess of $100,000 each to reproduce, and that's without the special effects gear that allows them to pop half-mile wheelies, attach film rigs, and be in massive crashes without mangling the driver/passengers. There is nothing "American Graffiti" about simply having enough privilege and money to pay a custom shop to "pimp" your ride. These aren't simply well-tuned old engines with sport shifting, a blower and a racing carburator on them - these are machines built by the same guys that build the cars for professional racing. Owning one of these doesn't say anything about you except that you have extraordinary spending power.

What really worries me about this development is not that this dangerous and silly subculture exists, it's that it's becoming mainstream. It's that I'm going to have to endure more and more teenage wastoids trying to imitate these behaviors in their endless quest for coolness. The reality of these cars is that almost none of the kids that pay to see these movies are going to be able to reproduce these cars. So what will they do? They'll make their cars loud instead of making them fast. And they'll drive around the city and neighborhood streets like idiots in the middle of the day/evening, attempting stunts they're not trained or able to do.

The beauty of America is the freedom to be any sort of stupid that you'd like to be... with one very important caveat: you can't do it if it keeps anyone else from being the kind of stupid that they'd like to be.

Noise pollution is excusable under certain circumstances (e.g. your band actually rocks, your car is actually fast, or you're someplace that is already loud). But if all you did was spend fifty bucks and thirty minutes bolting a noise-making device onto the exhaust of your KIA Sorrento, trust me, you're not fooling anyone - and the only attention you're getting is the kind that starts with "I wonder what douchebag is driving that thing..."

On the off chance that you actually do have a fast import car, rest assured that most of us do not care. Which means that I don't need you to cover the eighth of a mile between stoplights in three seconds just to highlight your feelings of inadequacy. I don't need you to swerve in and out of traffic just so I can appreciate the alleged glory of painting your car a color that's been known to cause seizures. And I certainly don't need you coming around a corner, squealing your 14-inch tires while you're trying to focus on the text message you just got. If you want to race, why don't you try it against someone else who actually wants to race you (and not the folks just trying to get somewhere), and doing it somewhere where the only people you'll hurt (in case your driving skill turns out to be a little less than you had predicted) are yourselves?

Besides, before you decide this is your one-way ticket to transcendent awesomeness, keep in mind that the buyers for the surviving F&F cars (after the filming) did not include Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, or Jordanna Brewster. But they did include the five feet of manliness that is Frankie Muniz. So after buying one, you'll only be one hit sitcom away from being that cool.