The Fate of the Furious

By now the Fast & Furious franchise doesn't need to try to make money. The series' deserved reputation as a diversely-cast fun action nonsense series has been chuggging on all cylinders for three movies and has steadily been making more and more money. Still with the loss of Paul Walker, another new director, and ever escalating set pieces, the question remained whether or not the the eighth film The Fate of the Furious could meet expectations.

Shortly after the revelation about their marriage and the recovery of Letty's memories, Dom and Letty are enjoying a blissful honeymoon in Cuba. However, this is quickly interrupted by a master hacker known as Cipher (Charlize Theron) who recruits Dom to her cause with an undertermined threat. With their leader turned against them, the Furious gang will do everything they can to stop Cipher's plan and hopefully bring Dom back into the fold.

So the first thing to get out of the way is that, no this movie is quite as good as the other films in the series' revival. It's hard to pinpoint exactly why, but I think it comes down to some of the new additions, slightly dulled down set pieces, and possibly direction. There's an attempt bring in a new straight laced white cop like character played by Scott Eastwood who is so forgettable that I literally don't remember his face, which really emphasizes how useful and endearing Paul Walker's good humored Brian O'Conner was. There's also something weird about Jason Statham joining the team so amicably after he literally killed a member of the team, but overall he's a fun addition.

Likewise, a lot of the set pieces (or the best parts of them) have been given away by the trailers or lack the same level of insanity as previous entries. There's no extended one on one brawl, and there's a lot of more standard driving than I'd prefer from a series that's been all about creative car usage. I also think director F Gary Gray emphasizes slow motion a tad too much during the finale.

But is the movie still fun? Absolutely. All of the characters remain well-defined, the comedy one two of Jason Statham and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson could be a movie by itself, and if you're looking for vehicular insanity there's no series that does it better. There's a least five the six excellent action scenes ranging from basic shootouts to a prison brawl or the faceoff agains the submarine that was given in the trailer. I also enjoy how this series has entered an unspoken agreement with its fans that it's all about delivering fun over physics in everything from fight scenes to the car stunts. Interestingly enough, my favorite action scenes all involve Jason Statham getting to go ham in some excellent hand to hand combat scenes, which is doubly fun for a Transporter fan such as myself.

Likewise, the team dynamics are the still there. Ludacris and Tyrese exist as comedic relief while Nathalie Emmanuel is the scoffing eye, The Rock is the heavy who banters action cliches with Jason Statham, and Michelle Rodriguez plays our conflicted tough lady. It's not as smooth as previously entries, probably because the shifts between melodrama and comedy are much harsher this time around, but still plenty endearing for franchise fans.

The biggest surprise was the affecting nature of Vin Diesel's performance. Diesel's gotten a ton of flack from critics and even fans of the series for his muted mumbling, but Dom's challenges in this movie requires more range than expected and he handles this pretty well. It doesn't hurt that his acting partner is a deliciously evil Charlize Theron as Cipher. Theron is an actress who's good in anything but I really like it when she goes into high camp super villain mode. She's really good at demonstrating calculated composure when she's in charge and then emotional freakouts when things start to turn against her. I do wish her motivation was a little more fleshed out, there's some talk of holding nation-states accountable, but she gives everything you want out of a rogue hacker.

If there's a theme for this movie it's that everything is well-done and fun, but not as well as before. That's not to say it isn't good, it's just not quite as good as the series highs. Still if you want big budget unapologetic action insanity there's still no franchise that does it better. A must for Fast fans.