You know, it’s taken eight films, but I finally get it. I finally understand the Fast And Furious franchise. If you just put your brain into neutral, and go along for the ride, you’ll enjoy it. If you just dim the headlights, pull in the side mirrors and don’t look in the rear-vision mirror, then you are bound to enjoy the gas-guzzling craziness that is the eighth film in the forever going series that started as Point Break with cars and has now become The Avengers with cars, The Fate Of The Furious.
In a post-Paul Walker world, the gang from the Fast & Furious family must face their toughest challenge yet: they must avoid being sucked into the charisma-vacuum that is Vin Diesel as he turns against his teammates for “reasons”. Now when the trailer first hit, hardcore fans of the series were shocked to see that Dominic Torretto would be playing the villain, leading many of them to come up with a variety of theories as to why he would do such a thing. Some thought that it might be a Dom from an alternative universe or possibly a clone, a long-lost twin brother, the character of Riddick trying to wedge himself into this franchise, it could have been a highly sophisticated robot, it could be Dom from an alternate future coming back to reset the past, the list goes on. Spoiler alert: it is none of those things and even though the reason for going rogue is somewhat understandable, literally every single one of those previous theories was a legitimate probability because, after watching this instalment, this series really has lost all sense of reality - but it’s still fun.
Zombie-cars - zombie-friggin’ cars, cars vs. submarines and physic-defying stunts just go to prove that this film didn’t just jump the shark - that happened a couple of films ago; this film jumps the shark, takes the shark out for dinner, wines and dines the shark, gives the shark the best night of its life, promises to call the shark the next morning, and then several weeks later the shark discovers that the film is now dating the shark’s sister and she’s already pregnant. So yeah, the film really does go over the top with some of its’ ideas, however it does need to be acknowledged that everything is done really well: the practical stunts are impressive, the fight sequences are like high-end music videos and the special effects really do bring scale to these crazy ideas.
The cast is huge and ever expanding as each film seems to add more and more characters to the line-up - it seems that if you’ve shown up once in one of these films, you’re guaranteed recurring roles in all of the subsequent sequels. Although, I am starting to notice a pattern in the series: the big-bad from the previous film always seems to join the team and they become bosom-buddies for the next chapter. Of course, these films are painfully formulaic now anyway so what do you expect. You know the drill: open in an exotic location for a street-race to remind the audience that these films used to be about street-racing, a big-bad arrives, the team get back together, team formulate a plan, and ends with cars jumping or exploding out of planes, tanks, submarines, dinosaurs, whatever they can get their hands on. But once again, I have to admit: it is fun.
Getting back to the cast though, fans should be happy to know that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has a bigger role than the previous film, he teams up with Jason Statham and this has now become my new favourite on-screen couple (sorry Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence) and a Rock/Statham spin-off movie needs to happen. The rest of the cast do what they do so well: Tyrese Gibson is the comedy, Ludacris is the nerdy-charm, Michelle Rodriguez is the bad-ass and we add Scott Eastwood as cut-price Kurt Russell for when he’s had enough of the series, Helen Mirren as a bad British stereotype and Charlize Theron as Cipher - a cyber terrorist who blah, blah, blah, let’s just get to car chases and explosions. And then there is Vin Diesel, the charisma-vacuum, I know hardcore fans will say that he is the heart and soul of this franchise (now that Paul Walker is gone), but his character has just been frozen in stasis since the first film - there is no development to his character, stuff happens to him but he seems incapable of reacting in anyway that may affect his “tough-guy” brand. With characters like Hobbs and Deckard keeping the interest, it may be time for Diesel to take a backseat to the franchise once more.
Overall, The Fate Of The Furious is exactly what it says on the label: a car chase movie of logic-defying proportions. If you can switch your brain off then you are bound to have some fun, but seriously, do not think too hard. If the calculations of the length of the runway in the climax to the sixth film did your head in then you will not want to do the calculations of how fast a submarine can move through ice that can support the weight of cars, tanks and humvees. The film is very fun, but very dumb; it is fun, but man it is very, very dumb.
The Fate Of The Furious gets Three out of Five Stars (or Three out of Five jaded sharks waiting for that phone call that will never come…)
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