So I'm really curious, but has Vin Diesel just sounded better in other works he's in? Granted I probably have a skewed perception since I have never seen any Fast movies or that much Vin Diesel works outside of Guradians of The Galaxy, but even then all he says is "I am Groot" (except for two sentences in the first and third films).
It's just that it seems I somehow have a bit of trouble telling apart some of the bad takes from the decent(?) ones, though I definitely see "Don't worry, I got this!" could use more energy considering what he just grabbed ahold of, and "RIDE OR DIE" obviously sounds too flat for a jump like that (though for some reason that's what makes it sound unintentionally funny).
It's very strange -- if you ever watch his short
Multi-Facial, his role in
Boiler Room, or even just his appearance in
Saving Private Ryan, it's more than clear he
can do more than gruff, flat Dominic Toretto when he tries, and if you've ever seen clips of him in the recording booth for
The Iron Giant or any of his Groot work, he gets into it in a way that shows he's absolutely passionate. I'd even argue when the F&F franchise started, the character of Dom wasn't anywhere close to the more muted performance Diesel puts in now and much more expressive, etc. I'd absolutely say he has talent, but the juggernaut that is F&F, especially over the last decade, has turned him into a walking meme that he's settled comfortably into.
Even saying that, I genuinely think the takes for Supercharged are legitimately bad takes, not decent ones that come off bad but fit the character -- and a part of me has to wonder if it's because it was all filmed in the wake of Paul Walker's death, when Diesel probably just wasn't "feeling it." I can't imagine how empty they all must've felt filming it when they knew Walker was meant to be there with them, and so the cue card reading and flat delivery just screams of (understandable) disinterest as a result to me. And I wonder how different it'd be if, now that we're almost a decade removed, his performance would be a little better for, say, the rollercoaster.
Anyway, this concludes my Vin Diesel TED talk.
