The Fate of the Furious Review

Who would’ve thought that a franchise that started out with street racing has now come to its eighth installment on an unexpectedly revived franchise? Certainly not anybody at this point. But after 16 years, The Fast and the Furious franchise keeps pushing along with some new insane way to reach the intensity level up with. Though it should’ve ended with the last installment Furious 7 as it was a sweet and teary sendoff to the late Paul Walker, it seemed right to continue this series to new heights with the highly anticipated The Fate of the Furious right before the summer movie season starts.

Now that Dom (Vin Diesel) and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) are on their honeymoon, Brian and Mia have retired from the game, and the rest of the crew has been exonerated, the globetrotting team has found a semblance of a normal life. But when a mysterious woman (Charlize Theron) seduces Dom back into the world of crime that he can’t escape, the crew will face the trails that will test them as never before.

Since Fast Five, this series constantly got better with each passing movie, in my opinion. It did go from street racing to heist and spy espionage graduating into bigger and better action to capitalize on that fact.  However, the story made me worried because upon watching the first trailer, it sounded pretty wrong about Dom turning rogue on his friends. He can’t turn his back on the one thing he cares about: family. But when you’re walking into these kinds of films, you know you’re tuning into some amazing action involving fast cars. Though The Fate of the Furious isn’t the best in the franchise, it still provides some enjoyment.

F. Gary Grey (Straight Outta Compton, The Italian Job) took over for James Wan and he did an excellent job handling all of the action here. There was never really a dull moment when he’s directing the action and he tried not to make everything over-the-top constantly. He had a technique of using slow motion during some of the scenes to really show the impact of the chaos that’s happening on the screen for our pleasure.  

The cast, like always, have a good dynamic between all of them. Diesel still gives a well-rounded performance once again as Dom even though he’s on the bad side now. He still carries the franchise as this is his baby and can’t let go. Dwayne Johnson as Hobbs gets to do more in this than the last movie, which is a great thing. Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris and Nathalie Emmanuel kept the team alive with their teamwork and good playoffs of each other. Jason Statham’s return isn’t any real surprise because from the trailer, he’s brought in to help the crew out. But the scenes that involve Statham and Johnston just shows that they have good chemistry between them.

Theron as the film’s antagonist wasn’t actually too bad. She’s a villain that’s probably gonna be remembered as she persuades Dom to do whatever she wants.  Plus another thing I liked about her in this is that she wasn’t over-the-top just like in Snow White and the Huntsman.

There’s no sense going into each movie thinking there’s going to be any logic with these action scenes. They’re there to look sweet and be entertainment And it’s there to a degree. These people know that the action is supposed to be ridiculous and self-aware. You have submarines, cars crashing into one another, and a tank. What more can you ask for? One of the best scenes by far involves a prison break, which you saw from the trailers.

The problems: While the action is awesome, one sequence, in particular, did feel like I was watching a cartoon and it took me out of it during that duration. Secondly, this didn’t exactly bring anything new to the table as it has some of the same beats from before and I kinda wanted something a little bit different we haven’t seen yet which makes the plot somewhat ridiculous.

Not everything in these movies has to make sense and it’s supposed to be dumb in a smart way. If people really think this franchise gets dumber every time, they’ll have a terrific time watching Transformers: The Last Knight, in my opinion. The Fast and the Furious franchise is here to be entertaining for anyone who loves seeing fast cars and explosions and such. If you’re an action movie junkie, you’ll have a blast watching this. Since a ninth installment is in the works, I’m curious on what the team will take on next. We already know they aren’t going into space so that’s out the window.

The Fate of the Furious retains the ridiculous fun action that’s made for this franchise that won’t be running out of gas anytime soon.

• Fast Five
• Fast & Furious 6
• Furious 7
• The Fate of the Furious
• The Fast and the Furious
• 2 Fast 2 Furious
• Fast & Furious
• The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

Grade: B-