Our reviewer watched all 10 parts of “Fast & Furious” in 22 hours. He is still alive!

The components seem clear: fast, pimped cars. Their equally souped-up drivers, bald alpha types with lots of muscle and few words. Women who often have even less to say. Crazy gadgets that need to be stolen. And car stunts where all the laws of physics fly the white flag. Welcome to Fast & Furious, now the longest running movie series about how the real world would lose your driver’s license in less than three seconds.

Now the tenth part “Fast X” has started in cinemas, which gave me the opportunity to catch up: until last week, as an occasional driver, I had not seen a full-length film in the series. Now all ten parts at once, plus the spin-off “Hobbs & Shaw”, that makes a total of about 1370 minutes or 22 hours. Assuming that the “Fast & Furious” cars rumble at an average of 250 kilometers per hour, that would give a fictitious distance of 5500 kilometers that could be covered in this time.

My ordeal felt about as long. However, during such a violent marathon you learn a lot: about the remarkable results of nitrous oxide injections in the engine. About male friendships that are forged into family bonds over the radiator grille. Or about the changes in the blockbuster landscape over the past two decades. So go ahead, but watch out for spoilers (not just on the cars)!

“I just packed up a good chunk of cash, it’s on its way to you.” The very first spoken sentence aptly describes the series’ journey from slightly awkward pose film in a parking lot on a budget of less than $40 million to today’s global mega-blockbuster. When “The Fast and the Furious” hit theaters in March 2001, the World Trade Center towers were still standing and Limp Bizkit was on the charts. At least Vin Diesel’s haircut hasn’t changed since then.

Closer to “Manta, Manta” than to “James Bond”, the first installment laid the groundwork for everything that would define the series in the future: two men on opposite sides of the law, the stoic mobster Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and reckless cop Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker), go from street rivals to co-workers and eventually brothers. Loyalty and honor are at the heart of what matters most: family.

Immediately after that comes the choice of drink: “You can drink anything, as long as it’s a Corona.” Those were the days when a beer brand connected everyone equally instead of a pandemic. Incidentally, the Los Angeles Police Department flannels order ice-cold, decaffeinated cappuccino.

The sequel “2 Fast 2 Furious” started without Vin Diesel, there was a lack of fuel, ie Gage. Now Paul Walker’s Brian must deal with another competitor/buddy in Miami alone – and his effect on women. Everything else is solved by a cascade of races where the cops are regularly a step late. What doesn’t go insane becomes insane.

Now the chronology gets a bit more complicated. The third part «Tokyo Drift» takes place between the sixth and seventh. Can be saved, neither Brian nor Dom (only in the obligatory post-credits scene) participate, the plot is paper thin. Funniest Saying: “The day I got my driver’s license was also the day I got my first speeding ticket.”

With a so-called soft reboot, ie a mix of remake and new beginning, part 4 ventures into the south of the American continent. Toretto is still hijacking trucks, or again, Brian is a cop. Dom’s partner Letty (Michelle Rodríguez) dies – more on the keyword death later – “Wonder Woman” Gal Gadot first appears.

Visually it’s not terribly outdated at all, the blue bottles of the NOS system still reliably pump nitrous oxide under the hood for extra speed, and the script seems to have been more budgeted too. After all, it contains sentences like: “Do you know the difference between a police officer and a criminal? A wrong decision.” Truly philosophical.

Since the solid fifth part (2011), the stunts have become more and more absurd, the technique more blatant, the family ties more and more close. The cars tumble out of planes, bouncing between skyscrapers, guided by a tracking system called “The Eye of God”, which can reveal anyone’s location. The whole world becomes a Carrera track, run by muscular guys with pithy sayings and a soft heart behind the hard shell.

Where rivalry between local gangs used to be at stake, now, analogous to the rise of Marvel and DC superhero movies, nothing less than mainstream saving the world is at stake. Owen Shaw (Luke Evans), the murderously efficient villain in the sixth part, crashes through the concrete into the tank, in the ninth part the crew even puts him in orbit: overwhelming cinema.

Toretto and his family work like Robin Hood, with power under the hood instead of a bow: if they steal something, you can be sure that those who have been stolen have a lot more dirt on them than they do themselves, most of them from them will join Dom’s crew appearance in the next film and take the law into their own hands with them; as are Luke Hobbs (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) and Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham).

Instagram’s filter has found its way and the roles within the group have become stuck. When it comes to women, at least things have turned around a bit. Following the accidental death of actor Paul Walker and his final tribute in the seventh installment, his character sits at home out of the action, tending to the kids while his wife Mia, Don’s (Jordana Brewster) sister, joins in the action.

Finally, in the eighth installment Cipher (Charlize Theron), a cyber-terrorist, comes into play who unleashes a grandiose orgy of destruction with hacked self-driving cars, a highlight of the entire series.

Now that “Fast X” is in theaters, directed by Justin Lin, Louis Leterrier has taken over, who really let it go with the “Transporter” movies. If you’ve made a mental pit stop regarding the plot in the meantime, no problem: in the first twenty minutes the events of the fifth part are listed again, because there is still someone left who wants to take revenge on Dom Toretto. Jason Momoa plays this hyper jack-in-the-box as a nasty cross between the Joker and Jack Sparrow.

An action highlight is a chase through Rome, where a rolling bomb threatens to end the Eternal City. Otherwise, the film continues the trend of its predecessors towards excess length (141 minutes). There is a lot of laziness with unnecessary quarrels and pathetic speeches. Worst of all, the series hasn’t lost ground in the action for a long time: there isn’t an ounce of risk involved. We don’t have to worry for a second about someone crashing into a wall at full speed, because even the supposedly deceased return regularly.

“Fast X” is just the beginning of the grand finale, which will end in two – according to Vin Diesel’s interviews even three – parts of “Fast & Furious”. What was to come?

The series has long since come up with its own formula, Fast, which, like a successful series, could continue indefinitely. It has become a genre of its own, combining elements of action, comedy, heist films, sports films, spy thrillers and superhero blockbusters. She likes to appeal to the two lowest of all beautiful feelings: sentimentality and childish exuberance. But an endless race leads nowhere and at some point the greatest pleasure is exhausted.

“Suffering is over. Time to die,” the villain says shortly before the final cliffhanger. I hope he’s serious.

“Fast X” is now playing in cinemas.