Fast & Furious

By: Ryan, on April 5, 2009

According to CNN, Fast & Furious, the fourth of the Vin Diesel street racing movies shattered April box office records. The movie grossed $72.5 million (CNN article) handily beating previous April record holder, “Anger Management” and Universal’s previous best, “Jurassic Park.” This all from a movie that earned a 21% from Rotten Tomatoes’ top critics, a 24% overall rating and what Lou Lumenick of the New York Post described as “An Utter Drag.“

I think this says a lot about the state of the times that we live in. During the Great Depression box office receipts sky-rocketed as the poor and destitute sought out an escape from the harsh realities of bread lines and widespread unemployment. Hollywood owes much of its early success to the collapse of the economy. So that begs the question, does the unexpected success of “Fast & Furious” herald the new Great Depression?

The answer isn’t simple, but likely, probably not. We know that the factors affecting the stability of the economy are much different now than they were eighty years ago. And when you look at the growing divide between the movies made for the masses and those produced for the educated (look no further than the Academy Awards for proof of this divide) than it’s relatively easy to understand why Fast & Furious would do so well. However, this doesn’t meant that people aren’t seeking an escape from reality. Maybe there really are that many seventeen year old boys ready to drop $10 to see terrible movies. Maybe the box office competition was just that weak. Maybe the movie was actually good. Or, maybe we are spiraling into another depression.

I don’t know, but one thing is for sure, the success any film with such memorable lines as “This is where my jurisdiction ends”, “And this is where mine begins”, heralds something. Maybe Uwe Boll is about to stage a major comeback?

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