So while we get ready for Fast X, let’s see how each film stacks up. But a pretty forgettable plot combined with the lack of the rest of the familiar Fast faces like Dom and Letty puts this one at #10. We also got to see Mia joining in on more of the action than she did in the first movie. But besides killing off one of its major characters, Fast & Furious didn’t do too much that the franchise hadn’t already seen. Fast & Furious 6 also has one of my favorite vehicles in the franchise with the “flip cars” that Shaw and his crew drive. We also got to see Hobbs come back and a wild post-credits scene that retconned Tokyo Drift — before F9 retconned the retcon. Muscles vs. tuners, pulling off crimes in souped-up cars, and, of course, Family —they all started here. Bringing back Charlize Theron and introducing John Cena and Vinnie Bennett to the cast didn’t hurt, either. It may be the single most “early-2000s” movie I’ve ever seen, but that’s a plus in my book. And despite the tragedy surrounding it, it still managed to be a great movie, with an incredible sequence set in Abu Dhabi. There were also skydiving cars, foreshadowing the car that went to space in F9. I really cannot understate that space car. The driving is less about speed and more about dexterity. Dom, Brian, and Letty have been swapped out for Han, Sean, and Bow Wow. And for a series that’s known for constantly making its set-pieces bigger (space car), Tokyo Drift actually feels like a smaller movie than 2 Fast 2 Furious. The Family starts globe-trotting, Luke Hobbs and Elena Neves are introduced, Gal Gadot’s Gisele Yashar is brought back in a more prominent role than in Fast & Furious, and the final set-piece with the vault is one of the best in the franchise.
