The Fate of the Furious review
The Fast and Furious franchise sure has become an odd one, hasn’t it? Like, if you’d told me about ten years ago that one of the most bankable and successful movie franchises of the 2010’s was going to be the freakin’ Fast and Furious movies, I’d probably slap you in the face and tell you to get off whatever you were smoking.
Yet here we are; installment number eight of a franchise that really didn’t start being any good until number five, when they figured out the magic formula was honestly just giving less of a crap. That’s been the secret charm propelling the more recent installments along, isn’t it?
By now they’ve dropped all pretense of being anything other than big, dumb, loud car movies and just embraced the inherent ridiculousness of it all. They’ve also embraced a completely un-ironic over-arching theme of family that’s so deeply permeated itself into the bedrock of this franchise it could basically go hand-in-hand with whatever’s on Nick Jr. right now. It really has worked, to be perfectly honest. Though I can’t say the franchise has ever reached a point beyond “pretty good” as far as I’m concerned, seeing a series this genuine about its values under-the-hood (haha car pun) become one of the most globally successful franchises of todays film-circuit is about as close to inspiring as I usually get within my cold, dead heart.
It’s interesting and amusing to see The Fate of the Furious try and shake things up a bit this time around. In case you missed it, yes, this really is the eighth installment of the franchise. With the recent, unexpected passing of Paul Walker leaving an undeniable impact that’s going to be felt long into the future, it feels like some changes are in order. As such, Fate of the Furious feels less like the next logical installment in the franchise, and more like a testing ground for new ideas to gather a sense of where to go next. I figure if Universal wants to gauge where to take the series next, why not offer some feedback.
Spoiler Alert
(but if you honestly care this much about spoilers for the Fast and Furious movies, then I don’t know how to help you.)
The biggest and most obvious change up, that you’ve all no-doubt gathered from the trailers and other marketing material, is that Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto has gone rogue due to the coercions of Charlize Theron’s new villain Cipher; essentially throwing the previous group dynamic of the series into chaos.
Now in theory, this is totally an idea I can get behind. A franchise eight movies deep has to offer some new conflicts outside of “car go fast and big explosion.” Having the main character of the entire franchise go rogue sets up an inherently deeper, smaller-scale conflict ripe for exploitation; a way to suddenly make almost 16 years worth of investment feel real by suddenly flipping it on its head. This is reflected in the set-pieces this time around too. They’re more motivated by the individual character drama rather than sheer insanity as has been the case the last films. They’re still pretty dang crazy, I mean the last 30-40 minutes of this movie is an extended assault on a Russian base culminating in a car chase with a nuclear sub, but I’d be lying if this didn’t feel like a bit of step-down from literally jumping cars between skyscrapers. Anyway, these pieces are all there for a more emotionally charged, on a more personal level of Fast and Furious… and it sadly just isn’t taken advantage of.
Dom manages to settle his way out of going rogue, and is almost immediately accepted back into the group by the end of the movie with almost no major consequences. I understand of course; suddenly delivering a much more emotionally raw entry into a franchise that only exists to be dumb action schlock would probably feel too out of place but if change-ups were the name of the game here, than I’m sad they missed out on an opportunity to add some real dramatic weight. For example, Captain America: Civil War ended with everyone ‘kinda’ being friends again, but it still feels like we’re going to be feeling the repercussions of Civil War for Marvel movies to come. Then again comparing Fast and Furious to the Marvel Cinematic Universe is like asking an apple to be an orange.
More interesting change-ups come on the villain side of things. First and foremost, hurrah, it’s possible the franchise might have found a legitimately bankable villain in Charlize Theron. They do end up doing the thing Spectre did by suddenly revealing she’s had connections to the previous two movies villain’s the whole time. I’m more inclined to forgive it here, because at least Fast and Furious doesn’t expect me to take it as seriously as Specter did. Theron’s quite frankly way too good for this series as it is, so its no surprise she ends up making the most of what she’s given here, and I’m hoping they get as much milage as they can out of her in future installments.
Similarly I hope they get as much as milage as they can out of Jason Stathem’s Deckard Shaw, now returning on the side of the good guys. It’s a little unbelievable, even for this series, that the rest of the cast is suddenly just willing to except him after he not only spent the entirety of the last movie trying to kill them all but ACTUALLY MURDERED one of their teammates. However, I’m inclined to forgive it here because at least Fast and Furious isn’t expecting me to take it as seriously. He has good chemistry with The Rock, and he ends up having the standout action sequence of the film that I won’t spoil here.
The only new addition I’m not really onboard with is Scott Eastwood. His character only really seems to exist to mildly annoy the other members of the crew, so they can immediately turn around and dump all over him for comedic effect; that is until he eventually just loosens up and becomes just another generic member of the crew, who I honestly forgot was in the movie for the entire last act. I guess he’s being billed as an eventual replacement for Kurt Russell’s character, but that sucks because that would mean Kurt Russell would have to stop being in these, and he just got here.
What else can I say? It’s pretty much another Fast and Furious movie from here on out. There’s a lot of corny dialogue, plenty of ridiculous action stuff, questionable decisions and screenwriting cliche’s abound, and director F. Gary Gray brings a slightly less frenetic pace to it all that’s appreciated.
Most likely you’ve already decided whether or not you’re interested in seeing this movie, and nothing I’ve said here will change your mind much. If you’ve been on board with the franchise for about the last three movies at least, there’s no reason for you not to check out this one.
For me, while Fate of the Furious won’t go down as my favorite film of the franchise, or probably even a particularly memorable movie I see this year, I feel like it will end up being a fascinating time-capsule of the series for future generations to amuse themselves over.
The Media Fire gives this movie 6.8/10
