Outside of Jaws, it would be tough to think of a movie idea less suited to the theatrical treatment than the rubber-burning, tarmac-eating 2001 car chase spectacular The Fast and the Furious and its seven sequels. But the F&F franchise has overcome terrible dialogue, the loss in 2013 of one of its lead actors (Paul Walker, who died in a car crash) and the recent criticisms of another regular, Michelle Rodriguez, who promised to “say goodbye” to the franchise if it didn’t become more female-friendly. The challenge of reproducing white-knuckle driving stunts in a confined space must have seemed like small beer.
On the evidence of Fast & Furious Live, a £25m arena show featuring 11 stunt performers and around 20 vehicles, Universal Studios has overestimated the goodwill toward its hit franchise. Large sections of seating in the O2 were closed off; entire rows in the rest of it were empty. And no wonder. It would be nice to say the worst thing about the show was the exhaust fumes that fill the venue shortly after Vin Diesel has walked off stage following his introductory speech. But the show stinks in both senses.
The reason for its failure is embarrassingly obvious. On the limited space of the arena floor, cars are reduced to turning in circles at low speed in front of a giant screen playing movie clips. A man clinging to the grille on a lorry just isn’t that impressive when the vehicle in question is moving at seven miles an hour. Fast it isn’t.
Elysia Wren makes a valiant attempt to whip the crowd into a frenzy as the cop Sophia Diaz leads us through the rudiments of a story about tracking down an international criminal. But she is doomed by the show’s unreasonable demands. At one point we are encouraged to cheer as loudly as possible to make the onscreen animated cars go faster; it’s like watching someone else play a giant, rudimentary 1980s arcade game. At least it’s better than the mass vote on whether a car that’s being assembled on stage should be red or blue. There may be less thrilling examples of audience participation than thousands of people holding up coloured cards, but right now nothing springs to mind.
Any achievements in the show are digital rather than vehicular. There’s a pleasing LED effect that makes a quartet of cars appear to be shimmering with glitter or rippling with flames. The nose of a plane bursts out of the screen while the top of a submarine seems to break through ice. But with the exception of a scene in which two cars slalom around some concrete pillars, the action relies on back-projection techniques not considered cutting edge since 1930s Hollywood.
A pre-show warning advising us not to mimic the stunts in the show is laughable when the vehicles here move only slightly faster than the queue out of the car park. The only danger in Fast & Furious Live is that the audience might die of carbon monoxide poisoning. Or boredom.
- Fast & Furious Live is at the O2 until Sunday, then touring.
