Hacker Cinema
Fast X
2023 · Film · 142 min
Part of The Fast and the Furious Collection
Directed by Louis Leterrier
Over many missions and against impossible odds, Dom Toretto and his family have outsmarted, out-nerved and outdriven every foe in their path. Now, they confront the most lethal opponent they've ever faced: A terrifying threat emerging from the shadows of the past who's fueled by blood revenge, and who is determined to shatter this family and destroy everything—and everyone—that Dom loves, forever.
4 negative1 mixed2 neutralfrom 7 commenters
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7 comments on Hacker News
> 2023 had a lot of big-budget bombs. Ant-Man, Indiana Jones, Mission Impossible, Transformers, The Flash, Fast X, Blue Beetle, Elemental, Shazam!, and the Marvels all underperformed somewhere on the scale from "disappointment" to "disaster".
And rightly so. The so-called special effects in those superhero movies are really getting exhausting. What's the point of having superpower yet battling like a peasant in medieval times? What's the point of having super intelligence yet making so many illogical decisions? What's the point of having the best technologies on earth yet having your tribe living in dirt and fighting with rhinos and using duet to elect your leaders? I can even tolerate such plot holes if the movies have good stories or interesting characters, but do they?
2023 had a lot of big-budget bombs. Ant-Man, Indiana Jones, Mission Impossible, Transformers, The Flash, Fast X, Blue Beetle, Elemental, Shazam!, and the Marvels all underperformed somewhere on the scale from "disappointment" to "disaster".
On the other hand, aside from the massive big-budget hits of Barbie and Mario, there were also a number of mid-budget films that did very well: John Wick 4, Sound of Freedom, Five Nights at Freddy's, Cocaine Bear and M3GAN all exceeded expectations.
So it's hard to interpret this as the "middle class" of movies disappearing. I'd say it's the opposite, in fact. People have gotten sick of the big-budget crap that follows the same formula (note how most of those bombs are superhero movies). It's really the big-budget films that are falling apart.
The problem with a UCLA-sponsored survey of teens is always going to be response bias.
For example:
>Very few adolescents prefer aspirational content. The majority favor original content over IP-based content. Also, the majority prefer binge releases over weekly releases.
A quick search of the top Youtubers shows that Gen Z in fact loves aspirational content, they just don't like the image that comes into their head when they hear the term.
A quick scan of the box office shows that they also love IP-based content, unless all the viewers of Spiderman, Barbie, Mario, Guardians of the Galaxy, Fast X, and The Little Mermaid were over 25 (Hell, even Oppenheimer was technically IP-based).
I believe the binge watching thing though.
Fast X
Critics 56%
Audience 84%
That movie wasn't fun. It was the first part in the series where hoped the bad guy wins.
In the previous films the nonsense physics was at least entertaining.
I feel like these are added dimensions beyond existing rating systems but I haven't found a good way to capture the data or communicate it.
At a high level what I really want is two ratings: Global rating and does this deliver what it promised. A greasy spoon is objectively not a good restaurant but it scratches an itch and you have certain relatively low expectations of it so in the context of greasy spoons generally I might rate the restaurant 5 stars even if globally I'd give it two stars.
As you say with Fast X: objectively it is not a good movie but it absolutely delivers what it promised. People who like that movie series will be pleased with it so in that context it deserves a positive rating.
As a follow-on I want to tell the system about the things I like + the things I hate. Then I want the system to give more weight to ratings from others who both like and hate the same things. I honestly don't care if critics or audiences liked the movie... I want to know if people who in some way think like me enjoyed it.
IMO audience score is more of a proxy for movie quality minus movie expectations. A lot of niche genre films do okay because 1: the only people who watch them are enthusiasts and 2: nobody goes in with high expectations to begin with. If everyone watched them and reviewed them they'd do much worse.
For a mainstream example, take Fast X. It's an objectively stupid movie with a great audience score - because it's exactly what it says on the tin! Nobody is confused about what they're watching. Nobody thinks they're going to get terrific drama or romance or suspense. They're going to get the 9th sequel to a comedy action movie about dudes driving cars.
It’s hard to predict future cultural relevance. No one in 1998 was predicting then global popularity of Korean film/TV/music within 2 decades. And yet it happened.
Chinese TV shows could become equally popular. Some will say you need to have freedom to create art but I’m pretty sure that the Mario movie or Fast X (two movies at the top at the moment) needed minimal artistic freedom. Fast X is actually a great example because that franchise goes out of its way to toe the CCP line.[1] It shows that it’s possible to make billions while also kowtowing to the Party.
[1] - John Cena apologises for calling Taiwan a country (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/25/world/asia/john-cena-taiwan-apology.html)