The Fate of the Furious

Action movie franchises tend to have the challenge of creating a foundation to build on while also taking risks in adding new developments to satisfy both the environment and the fanbase. The Fast and The Furious franchise is no exception and while it had a good starting point in its first movie, the series' evolution to how it is today is fascinating. In a manner similar to DC's Legends of Tomorrow first season, it may have start good at the beginning, but the dull developments involved with its characters in the second and third films bored fans but the fourth entry managed to show a light at the end of that tedious tunnel with a rebooted way of bringing the goods (much like Legends season 1 finale). And much like that shows second season, Fast Five proved to the audience members that they have looked at their past mistakes and have chosen to take their established principles while going as over-the-top as they can, which has been shown in the two films that followed. These principles include showing how little they care about the rules of physics and logic, embracing their fan fictions of what cars are capable of in their universe, dedication to booty shots, monologues about family, always saying "One last ride", and their beloved characters becoming superheroes at this point in the game. Trailers popped up for the eighth entry, The Fate of the Furious (they are missing an 8 in their title), which showed a nice sample of what they are building towards in the post Paul Walker-era. I was excited to see what kind of fan fiction these superheroes will be taking on and how they might add more to some fans guilty pleasure giggles the series has provided (mine included). I entered the theater ready to see what ridiculous insanity the superhero crew would get into this time and left it ecstatic over the fun and enjoyable action packed experience.

Plot: The plot takes place after Furious 7 where our protagonists are being happy in their peaceful lives after their previous "one last ride" and Dominic Toretto is blackmailed into betraying his family by a nefarious cyberterrorist. The rest of the group find themselves facing off not only against rogue beloved family member but also an elusive opponent. There are story pieces from the past entries, most notably Fast Five, Fast & Furious 6, and Furious 7, that connect to the larger story at hand, which is a great showing of established continuity. The plot is pretty balanced in terms of the story and action ratios. They did take some risks in the second act with some dark elements added to the stakes at hand. Outside of that darkness, it reminds fans that it's aware that it's a Fast & Furious movie and it knows how to have ridiculous fun with the absurd universe it has formed in the past seven films. Overall the story of The Fate of the Furious is about as predictably simple as fans would come to expect while taking some risks and developments to expand on the mythos.

Characters: The characters to focus on Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel), Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez), Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), and Cipher (Charlize Theron). Dominic is a former criminal and retired professional street racer whose honeymoon with his wife, Letty, is interrupted by blackmail from Cipher. Vin Diesel has been doing this role for over a decade and proves for the sixth time how he fits into this role pretty well (he wasn't in the second entry and Tokyo Drift barely counts since he only appeared just before the credits). The struggle he endures under the extortion is pretty relatable once the reason for his betrayal is revealed and the performance given by Vin works enough for it (even though subtitles for his character would help us vocally understand him). Letty is also a former criminal and retired professional street racer dealing with the actions of her rogue husband, Dominic, while working with the crew to stop Cipher. Michelle Rodriguez does a good job (for the sixth time) with her performance in trying to figure out what's going on with her husband while being given moments to prove her badass skills as they work to save the world. Luke is a Diplomatic Security Services agent and ally of Dom's crew who comes across Deckard, an old adversary he helped put in jail, after suffering the consequences of the aforementioned betrayal. Ever since his appearance in Fast Five, Dwayne has been a great presence for the wild ridiculous antics as well as his charisma and this is no exception. In his first scene here, he helps the comedic relief by channeling some of that leftover performance from Moana (to those of you who have already The Fate of the Furious you know what I'm talking about). Deckard is an assassin who was defeated by Dom's crew, with a little help by Luke, and by a weird coincidence ends up helping them out (as mentioned earlier, just ignore the logic of that situation and have fun). Jason is having a fun time in this role, especially in his scenes with Dwayne (spin-off please?), and has great charisma with some funny scenes (particularly in the third act). Cipher is a nefarious mastermind and evasive cyberterrorist who blackmails Dom into helping her schemes as well as going against his crew. Charlize gives a great portrayal of a cold calculating villain that pushes the crew harder than ever with a determination to cover all her tracks while making sure she gets what she wants. Honorable mentions go to Kurt Russel and Hellen Mirren for their fun suave performances as Mr Nobody and a surprising character, respectively (despite their limited screen time). Overall the cast and characters in The Fate of the Furious have fun being infused in the chaos and ridiculousness of the situation at hand while making the chemistry between them improve the experience.

Action: The action from start to finish shows that there are new ideas being taken to show the ridiculous over-the-top nature created by the franchise. If the past three entries weren't proof enough, this entry shows our characters as superheroes, with or without using their cars to emphasize how their enemies shouldn't underestimate what their capable of individually or as a united justice league crew. Those moments are evident in a few chase scenes, particularly at the beginning and in the third act. A special mention of this instance goes to Dwayne Johnson in a prison predicament and being self aware of how strong he is to the point where he might as well say "Rock Smash!" every time he fights. There are plenty of good dumb action moments spread throughout the movie that help make the experience even more fun. While the larger set pieces are impressive with their creativity, they could have went a little more ridiculous but are still very enjoyable as they are. Overall the action in The Fate of the Furious holds up pretty well to the ridiculous standards presented by the previous three entries, even though they could have pushed it a little bit more.

Guilty Pleasure Status: The best way to describe the franchise is the best way to describe DC's Legends of Tomorrow: It's something you turn to after a long day to kick back and relax while turning off your brain to embrace the fun insanity it can provide. And while the second and third entries are the worst entries, there are elements that need to be given credit to enjoy (namely Brian O'Connor, Roman Pierce, and Han). As mentioned earlier, the good started to outweigh the bad as it discovered the best way to entertain: Combine all the good parts from before and ignore the rules of physics as well as reality to bring the action awesomeness fans come to expect while not taking itself seriously. It's simple in the premise and doesn't need any pop culture reference schlock to please its crowd. The best parts are the dumbest parts such as Luke Hobbs breaking off his arm cast by literally flexing his muscles so hard. It's even established at this point that the elements of the earth are so afraid of the main characters to the point where parking lots that are collapsing will ignore them and fire won't even touch them but hurt everything else. It's one of the coolest and dumbest superhero franchises at this point, which took a long while to get to that status with the first few entries establishing origin story and mythos as the rest of them formed together to save the world on a few occasions after getting some practice on the street side. Fingers crossed for the ninth or tenth movie that will take the cars to space.

Overall Consensus: The Fate of the Furious expands on the possibilities of the franchise with its principles intact along with new ridiculous action set pieces, cheesy one-liners, familiar super powered heroes, and new developments in the storyline. ⭑⭑⭑⭑

Reasons to watch it: You like any of the aforementioned actors. You are a fan of The Fast & Furious franchise. You like fun dumb action movies. You don't care about story and are interested in the insane action pieces the series is known for. You like these movies as a guilty pleasure no matter how much they don't make sense.

Reasons to avoid it: You don't like any of the aforementioned actors. You don't like fun dumb action movies. You want to see action movies that make sense.

Coming up next: April has been so action packed to the point where I was going to dub it April Actionfest. However, just when I thought I was going to be taking a break this month, I have found two more movies I was interested in seeing later on. But before I tackle a certain anime film that was released earlier this month, I will be taking on a strange movie that caught my attention and has a limited screening. This upcoming weekend, I will be watching Colossal!!!