Stop Pretending Fast & Furious Is Still Good
Fast Forever just got announced for 2028 and everyone's acting like this is exciting news. It's not. The Fast & Furious franchise peaked over a decade ago and has been coasting on nostalgia fumes and Dom Toretto's unearned gravitas ever since.
Look, I'm going to say what we're all thinking but nobody has the guts to type: the Fast & Furious franchise has been bad for a long time. Not "fun bad." Not "so bad it's good." Just... bad.
And yet here we are. Universal just announced Fast Forever — the supposedly final chapter hitting theaters March 2028. They've already burned through one screenwriter and replaced him. They're promising to "go back to the roots." They're teasing bringing back Brian O'Conner through CGI.
I've heard all of this before. So have you.
The Peak Was Fast Five. Everything After Is Cope.
Let me be crystal clear about the timeline. The Fast and the Furious in 2001? Genuine lightning in a bottle. Street racing, undercover cops, NOS — it was dumb and it knew it was dumb and that's what made it work.
2 Fast 2 Furious? Silly but entertaining. Tokyo Drift? Underrated. Fast & Furious in 2009 brought the gang back and set up the heist era.
Then came Fast Five. The Rock shows up. They drag a vault through the streets of Rio. The franchise reinvents itself as an ensemble heist series and it works. Fast Five is genuinely great — a perfect blend of absurdity and self-awareness.
And that's where it should have ended.
The Descent Into Nonsense
Fast & Furious 6 had the runway scene that lasted longer than most actual flights. Fine. Furious 7 got a pass because of Paul Walker's tribute — and deservedly so, that ending is genuinely moving.
But after that? The Fate of the Furious had a submarine chase. Hobbs & Shaw went full superhero. F9 literally sent a car into space. Not a metaphor. Outer space. With a Pontiac Fiero strapped to a rocket.
And Fast X? A bloated, joyless mess that exists solely to set up the next movie. Jason Momoa chewing scenery was the only thing keeping it alive.
Here's the thing: there's a difference between escalation and desperation. The first few films escalated. Everything after Furious 7 has been desperate.
"Going Back to the Roots" — Sure, Jan.
Every time a franchise announces it's "going back to basics," run. It means they've realized the last few installments were garbage and they're hoping nostalgia will bail them out.
Fast Forever is promising street racing again. They're bringing in a new screenwriter after the first one didn't work out. And the biggest headline? They want to bring back Brian O'Conner — Paul Walker's character — using digital recreation.
I don't even know where to start with that one. Furious 7 gave Brian a perfect, emotionally devastating farewell. One of the best character send-offs in blockbuster history. And now they want to undo it because they need butts in seats?
That's not honoring a legacy. That's strip-mining it.
The Real Problem Nobody Talks About
The Fast franchise doesn't have a story problem. It has a Vin Diesel problem.
Dom Toretto started as a charismatic street racer and slowly morphed into an invincible demigod who solves every problem by mumbling about family while staring into the middle distance. He can't be hurt, he can't be wrong, and he can't lose. That's not a character — that's a wish-fulfillment avatar with a cross necklace.
Great franchises survive because characters change. Dom hasn't changed since 2011. He's just gotten more bulletproof.
Just Let It End
Here's my prediction: Fast Forever will make money. Not as much as they want, but enough for someone at Universal to greenlight "one more" spin-off. And then another. And we'll be having this exact conversation in 2032.
The franchise has been running for 25 years. It has given us some genuinely iconic moments — the first quarter-mile race, the Rio vault heist, the Paul Walker farewell. Those moments aren't diminished by admitting the last several entries have been bad.
Stop defending movies you don't actually enjoy rewatching. Stop confusing brand loyalty for quality. And stop pretending that a franchise going to space with a Pontiac Fiero is the same thing as entertainment.
Fast & Furious was great. Past tense. Let it go.
I said what I said.