The Fate of the Furious

WARNING: This review is hidden because it reveals the content of the film.
Click here to show this review. The “Fast and Furious” series has had its ups and downs but since the fifth entry, it’s been a steady climb. It all lead to the seventh entry and its goodbye to Paul Walker, who died tragically before shooting ended. This would’ve been the perfect time to end the series on a high note but woah-hoah! Did you see those box-office results? No way they were going to stop there. This brings us to “The Fate of the Furious”, which has many fan-pleasing moments but makes you wonder if the series has run out of ideas.

Cyber superterrorist Cipher (Charlize Theron) strongarms Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) into working for her and betraying his “family”. Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) and Tej (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges) must team up with their old nemesis, Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), to take them down.

Based on what we’ve seen before, you have certain expectations of "Fast and Furious 8". Thankfully, all the checkboxes get ticked. We get a nice street race with Dom that’s so wild, it’ll have you jumping out of your seat in excitement. You get speeches about family, pretty much everyone who played a part in any of the previous films is back for at least a little bit, and they’re used quite well. Particularly fun is Kurt Russell as “Mr. Nobody”, the man who helps the crew by providing them the cars and tools they need to blow away their opponent and the audience's minds too. Nothing’s quite as crazy as the car racing through those three skyscrapers in #7 but wait till you see what kinda tricks Cipher has up her sleeve. It’s pretty sweet.

We've been told two more “Fast & Furious” movies will come after this one. If so, I hope the writers can turn the key on something more inspired. Much of what we see here, we've seen Dom and the family encounter before. Hobbs started out as an enemy but he teamed up with the heroes in #6. The family being betrayed by one of their own? Also in #6. I know it’ll sound weird to expect some brains from this series but when you find out why Dom is betraying everyone, it's so contrived you're pulled out of the movie. He couldn’t leave a note explaining to them what was happening? Really? To an extent you can buy Hobbs shrugging off rubber bullets - it’s nothing compared to that cement-shattering stomp Dom delivered in the previous movie - but when your characters do impossible things over and over AND they don’t act logically, it feels like the filmmakers are taking the audience for granted. By the time this movie’s over, everyone acts as if they’re best buds with Deckard Shaw. Did they just forget he was trying to kill them one movie ago, and that he assassinated their friend Hahn? This movie is paying attention to its continuity because it brings back characters and references previous actions… but hopes we’ll just shrug off other big plot points.

The climax is where it really gets nuts, all for the better. You’ve seen cars against a tank. Then, they took on a suped-up anti-aircraft drone in the middle of Los Angeles. What could possibly top that? How about a nuclear submarine? Woah. It’s as preposterous and awesome as it sounds. THen, we get even more. At the same time, Deckard and Owen Shaw (Luke Evans, playing another villain who gets chummy with the heroes) are assigned their own mission, one that delivers both thrills and comedy.

“The Fate of the Furious” delivers what you want to see. Dwayne Johnson gets a juicy stack of zingers, Vin Diesel talks about family, you get the hot ladies and the hotter cars. There’s action, comedy, drama and thrills. There are a couple of inventive action scenes and the chemistry between the actors is so good you’ll swallow just about anything they serve you. Too bad the plot lacks imagination. It makes he whole thing feels more like a cash-grab than a necessary continuation. Hopefully, this is a momentary dip. If what follows is great, then I’ll have no problem with it. Otherwise, we'll all be telling future fans to just stop at “Fast & Furious 7”. (On Blu-ray, April 26, 2019)