Lookie here, another film that was held back because of Corona has finally made it to cinemas. It’s Fast and the Furious 9 but, unlike when I reviewed Hobbs and Shaw, this time I’ve finally marathoned all the Fast and the Furious movies.
Be warned, if you want a serious review of Fast and the Furious 9 you will not find it here! I don’t review the Fast and the Furious movies the same way as I do normal movies because it’s a special franchise where my thoughts are entirely based on on how entertained I was.
The Fast franchise has one of the most fascinating quality changes in cinema. The first movie was just about two guys who love driving cars and defeating well off criminals. This formula gets really boring really fast, especially when the third and fourth movies drive on by. Then Fast Five happened where they ditch all that rubbish in favour of action, heists and espionage, but with cars and street criminals. Then as each movie rolled by it evolved into a kid’s superhero cartoon show, which is fully realised by the ever so epic The Fate and the Furious. It’s got the classic plot of Dom, the hero turning on his friends because he’s forced to work with Charlize Theron, the super villain who wants nothing more than world domination. By that point I knew I was a fan of this ludicrous franchise that is obsessed with topping itself with every entry, which continues on here.
In this episode of Fast and the Furious, Vin Diesel, aka Dom the family man, is living in fear for some reason on a remote farm with his wife Michele Rodriguez, aka Letty, and his son Brian. I have an encyclopedic memory of F&F and I was still confused when Dom told his son to hide in the drawer, while he grabbed a shotgun to aim at family member Tyrese Gibson, aka Roman, when he showed up in his driveaway. The traditional over the top action arrives with Dom’s never before mentioned brother John Cena, aka Jakob. F&F continues its long history of rewriting its own timeline and the lengths they went to so Jakob’s inclusion makes any sense will forever amuse me. Anyway John Cena is going to endanger the world by looking for the pieces to an Earth killing device and it’s up to Dom and the family to stop his nefarious plans.
Dom has a secret brother! So what my friend, that’s only the tip of the dumbness iceberg! In this movie, when our heroes are chased through the jungle by an armed militia for taking a secret hexagonal technology piece from a crashed government plane, they pretty much treat it like it’s a laid back Sunday drive. Roman, the incompetent badass of the family, because he’s the funny one can still one man army an entire squad of highly trained soldiers. They drive through a land mine field with their Mercedes’ or whatever while being shot at by a helicopter with missile launchers. Don’t even get me started on the car that drives off a cliff so it can be caught in mid-air by a big jet. This is followed by Dom also driving his car off a cliff so it can be caught by a broken bridge rope, which he can use to swing his car like Tarzan over to the other side of the massive gorge to reach safety! He and Letty react like this is a normal thing that they do together. That’s only 20 minutes in and there 2 plus hours of more awesomeness to discover.
I was delightfully enthralled by Fast and the Furious 9. I guess the only thing that bugged me is they pulled a Furious 7 move, midway through where they swapped out the antagonist who has a lot of beef with Dom in favour of some throwaway bad guy. Speaking of bad guys John Cena kind of sucks as one and they should have just made Charlize Theron the main villain again. The last one being that the drama and tension just doesn’t exist here. Despite those little nitpicks, this is the awesomest movie that ever awesomed! The last movie had Charlize Theron hacking every car in New York City to crash into a Russian convoy, while this one introduces magnet cars that can pull other cars through buildings and at one point can be used for car soccer!! Tyrese also brings up the daunting question as to how, after five movies, none of them are dead yet and even suggests they may actually be invincible. Ludacris’s calm reaction this revelation is hilarious, but next movie I expect a complete fourth wall break. It was also nice seeing the return of characters I recognise, because they’re just so likable. Dom’s sister is back, plus the Tokyo Drift guys and the man whose grand return is spoiled on the poster and trailers, but I won’t say anything about that here, other than the explanation cracked me up.
Yep, this movie is wonderful and just what I needed right now. Another thing that’s awesome with The Fast and the Furious franchise is they transcend my rating system, so if you want to know how this ranks compared to the other movies, click the Letterboxd link below. If you have the opportunity go and watch this movie, because it’s a staple of life. Anyway if you made it this far and like The Fast and the Furious movies then you’re an honorary member of The Blog Complainer Family. I hope you had good fun and until next time let’s say grace and hope that in the tenth one Dom gets actual super powers and fights dinosaurs or something cool like that!
