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Film Review
The Fate of the Furious (PG-13)
Written By Amy Diaz (adiaz@hippopress.com)
Images: Movie Screenshot
Vin Diesel’s Dom turns against his longtime friends, even his wife, Michelle Rodriguez’s Letty, in The Fate of the Furious, the eighth Fast and Furious movie.
Dom and Letty are on their honeymoon in Cuba when he first meets a woman we later learn is Cipher (Charlize Theron), international hacker terrorist troublemaker whatever I’ve already stopped caring what her deal is. In short, Cipher is the bad guy.
Later, Dom and his team — Letty, Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej Parker (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges), Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) — agree to do a job for governmental agent bad-ass Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson). It’s an off-the-books thing to steal an electromagnetic pulse weapon. The team is successful but then Dom double-crosses Hobbs and takes off with the weapon. Hobbs winds up in jail with Deckard (Jason Statham), a criminal from previous movies who has a brother named Owen (Luke Evans), who was also in some of the previous movies.
Hobbs and Deckard, who, hilariously, have cells across from each other (is that how prison works?) basically spend their time trading threats until their breakout is arranged by Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) and his associate, whom they mostly call Little Nobody (Scott Eastwood), which I find kind of silly and endearing. Both Nobodies work for another shadowy government organization that brings together Hobbs, Deckard and Dom’s team to find Dom and Cipher. (Side note: By the end of the movie, it appears that Eastwood is auditioning for the “blond lawman” slot left open after the real-world death of actor Paul Walker. Brian, Walker’s character, stays retired in the franchise’s plot along with Jordana Brewster’s Mia, Brian’s wife and Dom’s sister, though the movie does give them a few shoutouts.)
Why is Dom working for a bad guy? Because she has something on him. Something explosive involving a character from a previous movie. Something I never could have guessed. Mostly because I totally forgot about that character’s existence and, when I remembered, first thought the person was a different character, who I actually think might have died a few movies ago.
“I don’t think that’s how fire works.” “I don’t think that’s how gravity works.” “I don’t think a car can do that.” “What did he just say? I don’t think that collection of words actually constitutes a meaningful sentence.” These are statements that apply not only to The Fate of the Furious but to pretty much all of the Fast and Furious movies. Not that it matters. Realistic portrayals of physics and language usage are not the point of these movies. Awesomeness is the point. Unadulterated vroom vroom silly, entertaining awesomeness.
Here, with a few mild spoilers, is what this movie has going for it:
• A car race involving a car that is racing backward and on fire.
• A car chase involving a submarine.
• A car chase involving a wrecking ball.
• A car chase that might make you question the benefits of self-driving cars.
• Dwayne Johnson coaching a little girls’ soccer team that starts its game with a Pacific Islander warrior dance.
• Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham talking smack to each other.
• Jason Statham conducting a fight scene that weaves together killing a bunch of henchmen, being adorable and what sounds like Chipmunks music.
• Helen Mirren.
Does all of this make sense? No. Again, does it matter? No. Because, is The Fate of the Furious fun? Yes.
At two hours and 16 minutes, this movie should be shorter, I’d say at least 30 minutes shorter. I get that Charlize Theron can do campy villain but she needs to either turn the silliness down a notch or two or turn it way up so she is at Ravenna the evil queen from those Huntsman movies volume from the start. There’s a lot of talk about family and “that’s not Dom” and Cipher’s motives which, gah, I do not care about Cipher’s motives — all of that could easily go. In fact, any conversation that isn’t at least 70 percent characters making fun of each other is probably not a conversation this movie needs.
But plenty of conversations are mostly good-natured insults. And plenty of scenes are more action than talking. These movies know what they are and by this point are pretty good at delivering exactly the fuel-injected entertainment you’re looking for.