Fast! Furious! Eyebrows!

I've got two theories as to why Fast and Furious had the biggest April box office opening in history last week.

1. Pre-9/11 nostalgia.

Ah, the summer of 2001, a magical time of budget surpluses, dopey-but-harmless joke presidents, and little to no fear of apocalyptic terrorist attacks. It was also a time when a couple of young hotshots with serious drag-racing skills named Vin Diesel and Paul Walker taught us all how to love while committing grand theft auto. A simpler, gentler time. 9-11, pervasive fearmongering, endless war, torture, economic meltdown, The Chronicles of Riddick, Into the Blue and Michelle Rodriguez's DUI arrest later, and America wants the safety and security of the halcyon days before the towers fell. So when we see that the original cast from The Fast and the Furious is back together again, featuring the soothingly prominent eyebrows of Jordana Brewster, and without any bullshit about weird, foreign practices like "Tokyo drifting," we clamored to the cinema in order to relive that last summer of innocence.

2. The Fewer Words, the Better.

For the longest time, conventional Hollywood wisdom held that the key to making sequels enticing to an audience is adding words to the title. That's how you end up contending with exotic terminology like "Tokyo Drift" and "Electric Boogaloo." Now we know that what audiences really crave is simplicity. Don't be surprised if the Transformers sequel, currently called Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen becomes Trannies by the time June rolls around.