a THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS musing

Coming off the insane success of FURIOUS 7, FATE makes sure to emphasize the family aspect of the franchise and keeps the freshness alive. In this installment, Dom (Vin Diesel) is forced to go rogue by a tech-genius villain in order to steal nukes. Story doesn’t really matter as usual, as it only serves as an excuse to do crazy stunts with cars. At this point, everyone is a superhero, so cars aren’t needed most times for great action. Jason Statham and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson absolutely steal this movie from whatever grunting Vin Diesel does. (A spinoff with Statham and The Rock is currently being developed, and I am SO HYPED.) Charlize Theron does a serviceable job in the villain role, and it sucks that Paul Walker was replaced by the most generic white person ever, Scott Eastwood, but the cast does great work in their respective roles, since they’re really just hamming it up. 

The logic at times is absolutely ridiculous and so unbelievable, but it doesn’t matter because the action and cast chemistry is incredibly fun. (Like why do they accept Statham into their family WHEN HE KILLED ONE OF THEIR FAMILY? Ugh.) One of my favorite sequences of the year comes around the end on an airplane, and I won’t spoil it for anyone, but it’s brilliantly choreographed, funny and expertly directed. Although out of the four movies in this series I’ve seen, I’d rank them : 5, 7, 8, 6.

The Fast franchise knows that it’s inherently silly and a completely new entity than what they tried to create back in 2001. They effectively pull off insane stunts and ground it in family, no matter how ridiculous it can get. And people still coming back to it and throwing their money at it. I’ll be one of them until the wheels on this franchise stop turning.

RATING: DIDN’T WASTE MY MONEY

(Refer to my rating system HERE!)