Huge movie franchises or gigantic TV box sets can leave you feeling overwhelmed if you don't get in there right at the beginning. Do you, for example, have 96 hours to dedicate to completing Game of Thrones? Or could you conceivably find 86 hours for all the MCU movies? And if the answer is 'yes', are you sure you're OK?
Embarking from scratch on a well-established TV franchise is a big-time commitment. I remember even having to give up on my favourite soap, Eastenders, after it went to four nights a week and each Sunday I was faced with often more than 18 hours to catch up. I was neglecting my family, my job, my life was falling apart; it was simply not sustainable.
For me, the Fast and Furious films are one of these insurmountable franchises. With a tenth movie in the works, there's a total of 24 hours to watch if you want to be ready. And I can tell you with 100 per cent certainty, I am never going to watch 24 hours' worth of Fasts and Furioussess. There simply isn't time.
But I wonder if it's possible there might be a hack? Like skim-reading a book, or reading the last page, what if just... start at the end? Can I cheat the system? Can I make literally any sense of Fast and Furious if I simply start at movie number nine and watch from there?
And so I sit down to watch Fast 9 and I should tell you before we begin that I often don't know what's going on in a movie even when they're just a one-off. I'm the one who keeps pausing it and going: "Right, who's that?" or "What did she just say?" so this, I knew, would be one of my greatest challenges.
The movie begins and we're on a car track. So far, it's exactly what I expected. There seems to be a certain level of threat and aggression when suddenly there's an absolutely catastrophic crash; the car flips, spins, catches fire in the air, surely no one could have survived it. I cover my eyes. "This is going to be a bumpy ride", I say to myself.
Next, there's Vin Diesel fixing a car with a kid. And there's Michelle Rodriguez, who I know from her excellent work in Lost. "Does she want to help fix the car?", I wonder out loud. But there's no time to answer as an unexpected guest is on the way and they quickly get out their guns and shove the kid in a box in the barn.
Never mind though, it's friends not foe. And not just any friend, it's rapper Ludacris! From the conversation that follows I glean that Vin Diesel is the kid's father, the mother (not Michelle) is dead and there's someone out there who's not very nice and called "Cipher".
The next thing I know, everyone is driving in a huge convoy of what look like some tanks, 4x4s and I swear I saw a few Luton vans, all driving fast on one of those nightmarish windy mountain roads. There is absolutely no way I'd get in a car with any of these people. "Did the plane go down, or was it sent down on purpose... ?" says someone. "There's no sign of Mr Nobody," says someone else.
Suddenly there's gunfire and actor Tyrese Gibson lands fully on his face from a great height but isn't even really hurt. "Please don't tell me you're thinking what I think you're thinking" says Ludicris.
There's an explosion and a car wreck almost every second and so, at this point, my mind starts to wander into budgets, special effects departments, on-set safety, that sort of thing. I Google it: Fast and Furious 9 took £726million at the Box Office and had a budget of £225m. Now, I'm no accountant but that seems like a decent profit. While I'm Googling though, I hear a noise and look up to see a PLANE swoop over the car chase. And also helicopters.
After the insane 20-minute car chase, they have a bit of a group chat and this is where I learn some crucial information. One of them says: "Who is Jacob?" And someone else says: "He was, or is, Dom's brother". I realise Vin Diesel's character must be called Dom so I'll call him Dom from now on. Tyrese Gibson continues to help fill in the many, MANY blanks for me saying: "You got a brother who also happens to be a super-spy who pre-plans an aerial jump? Who does that?"
Don says: "A Toretto". And then I remember one of the guys at the start had Toretto written on his overalls. And the guy is screaming, "That's my dad!" at the catastrophic car cash. A little "Toretto family tree" begins to etch nicely across my mind. Dom, Jacob, their dad in the burning car. Gotcha.
Next, who's this? Oh my God it's Charlize Theron and she's surrounded by neon rods and saying cruel and cryptic things. My big question is though, why has she let my mum from the 80s cut her hair? It's in the traditional 'bowl' style many of us only see on our school photos in the loft. Dreadful. Poor Charlize.
Back to Dom now and they're all in "Mr Nobody's secret hideout" where things are as confusing for an uninitiated F&F watcher as ever. Gibson points out that it's mad they're all not dead after all the injuries and car accidents. Huh, "that's true," I think. Like when he fell in the hole on his face and he was fine. "We are not normal," he says to the group.
To make things worse I begin to suspect a lot of this story is being told in the classic storytelling technique, 'The Flashback'. So we have old Dom and old Jacob, and also young Dom and young Jacob to get to grips with here. And all played by actors appearing to be broadly the same age.
It's during one of these baffling flashbacks that Dom realises Jacob killed their dad at the start, with a hairline crack in the fuel line, that day on the track when he was tinkering about under the hood. Why Jacob, WHY?! There's only one thing for it. They must race. "The chance for peace died that day on the track" says Dom. While somewhere else, Michelle Rodriguez and someone I think might be Dom's sister are tucking into some ramen. "There's peace for me in the chaos" says Michelle.
So I'm an hour in to this movie now and my very thin understanding of plot is that Dom and his brother Jacob have some old beef. Jacob has clearly killed their dad and now wants to kill everyone, in the world, and he must be stopped. And Charlize Theron is involved somehow.
Clinging desperately to this, I head into hour two. Dom is at what appears to be one of Elton John's White Tie and Tiara parties. Suddenly there's rapper Cardi B! We haven't had a big car chase for a while. I begin to wonder if they spent all the money at the beginning when the story swerves and we're in Edinburgh. Or "Harry Potter world", as Ludicris describes it.
Jacob is driving a blue car and is somehow using an electromagnetic force field to get into a vault. "Not even a scratch" Gibson says still amazed he's not dead after yet another bad road traffic accident.
More flashbacks for Dom coming up: Oh look, there's the Dad helping baby Dom fix a car. Aww. "A family is like this car, it's immortal if you build it right." And then there's Jacob under the hood of Dad's car, but did he actually do anything wrong after all? Now we see it with our own flashed-back eyes?
As I reach the end of hour two I review what I know for sure: There's an emerging theme of electro-magnetism playing a part in things. I'm not sure why. I'm weirdly enjoying it. And there's also a theme of perceived immortality. Also, am I attracted to Jacob? And young Dom? I think so. But if you forced me to explain the plot to you, say for a million quid on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, I don't think I could do it.
I'd have to phone a friend. But who? Who in normal life would ever know the answers to this movie? I'd literally need Vin Diesel's phone number. Also I'm starting to feel very tired. I've had some toast but I haven't seen anyone on-screen eat anything since Michelle and the sister had the ramen. No one has had a shower. Vin Diesel had a brief nap but it was on top of a trunk in an aircraft hanger and involved plot-critical flashbacks. "If we don't get out of here, Dom, we're dead" says his sister.
Meanwhile, in outer-space (when did that happen?), Ludicris is having a problem. "We're not invincible," he says sadly, "We've probably just been lucky this whole time." I sense we're nearing the end now as people are smiling and lit by warm afternoon light, drinking bottles of beer. Wait, there's an empty chair at Dom's BBQ. Could it be for Jacob? I actually don't know if that's implied as a blue car drives up.
There's just been so many, many cars. And so much damage. Fast and Furious 10 is out May 19, 2023, if anyone wants to go to the cinema with me?
