This might just be the dumbest Fast and Furious movie to date, which is no small feat. I enjoyed it, it was fun, there are explosions, cars, and the Rock (especially the Rock), but oh so dumb. Basically this is exactly what you want out of a Fast and Furious movie, done not quite as well as 1,3, or 5-7 (the good/semi memorable ones). Don’t pay for it (though I did), but I wouldn’t have minded watching it for free, or on a plane.
Overview
This is one of the spy/action oriented Fastest Furious-est movies, with the mandatory token car race at the beginning. For anyone new to the series it is split into two distinct sets (so far); movies 1-4 are car racing movies centered around cool/fast cars and pretty girls, with token plots, 5-8 are about how the same random people from the first set became world renowned operators and super spies. Anyway, in this one, bad guys made Dom (Vin Diesel) betray his ‘family’. This is important for anyone who might be invested in the storylines of the Fast franchise…
Dom is unhappy with betrayal
I like to imagine that one person’s name is Fred, and they are very earnest and were super hurt when the trailer dropped. Their single, crayon written fan letter made it through the Vin Diesel (Mr. VD), and he wrote back, in his own black crayon, “don’t worry Fred, I’ll make sure there is no mystery about his intentions.” Fred is their number 1 fan after all. I’m going to spoil this for all of you, he has a son (that he didn’t know about) and the lady kidnapped him. There, all none of you that care about Fast and Furious plotlines can be mad at me now. If this ruined seeing the movie for you, then you are lying.
Vin betrays the crew, and they fight him, his ridiculously super powered cars and his cyber terrorist girlfriend (the great Charlize Theron, famous for playing the White Bitch). And they do so by throwing really fast really expensive cars at each other. The Rock is there, so is Jason Statham, with the original crew, and they do things with explosions and submarines and planes and stuff. Kablammo! There that’s the movie.
This is every movie role besides maybe Mad Max
The star of the show is definitely the Rock, his opening scene is him doing the Hakka with a soccer team of 12 year old girls, and only goes up from there. They turned him into a super human and it’s fucking great. He gets called Hercules by Statham at one point, which is a cute reference to his role , but I’m pretty sure he is stronger in this movie. He holds people in the air at arm’s length sideways, rips concrete tables off the wall purely for exercise, and send 3 guys flying with a single shoulder check. He is my personal idol, it’s incredible. If I could find a super-cut of just the Rock in FF movies I would watch that instead every time.
Look, there are cars, explosions, the rock, and hot girls at the beginning whom I am 90% sure are just local strippers they hired (the race starting girl’s skirt gets a centimeter higher every movie). If that is all you want, and you want it on a big screen, then this is that. I personally think the previous movies did it better.
Fight me
But Here’s the Thing
Okay first of all I want to address the dead elephant in the room, Paul Walker (too soon?). He is every obviously not in this movie, and there was a lot of speculation about how the franchise would handle him leaving. It turns out all they needed was a single line:
“Should was ask Brian for help?” “No, we promised to leave him and his family out of this”
An actual dialogue line while discussing inevitable nuclear war.
At the end of the movie Vin Diesel names his son Brian in honour of his friend (and dishonour of his now dead exwife who already named him), at a barbeque with his entire ‘family’ (to introduce them to his son), without his actual sister or Paul Walker. I understand why he couldn’t be there, but still ‘they want to be left alone’ is a weird in-universe reason to not introduce them to your son (their nephew, who you named after him).
Notable physics problems (besides just everything); the submarine can’t catch up, so hits a bunch of ice, and somehow then does catch up, and Vin Diesel is saved from a massive explosion by using sports cars to shield him from the fireball. You can directly see the fireball under the car in front of him, and yet it shields him fully. Non-Ludacris black guy snapping and shooting 4 dudes could also be considered a breach of physics; I guess he was tired of his character being pure comic relief. Oh and of course the magic hacking, from everybody, but honestly just props to both sides for those magic UI’s that appear every time they look for someone with a computer.
The ice is made of speed
I wouldn’t even know where to start with the dialogue honestly, I think it would be a great game to watch this drunk and just repeat the lines as they are said. If I hadn’t watched the movie I wouldn’t have thought anyone could have said them aloud without realizing how stupid they sounded.
Best bits of the movie: The Rock, Helen Mirren as Jason Statham’s mom, Jason Statham recreating the call of duty 4 mile high club level while carrying a baby car seat, and The Rock again.
Overall I would rather rewatch any of the last 3 FF movies then sit through this one, and I recommend you just do that.
Sorry Dom
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