God I can’t wait till the drag race on the Moon in what I’m calling; Fast & Xtreme or Furious & Xtreme. I dunno it’s a working title, some combination of Fast, Furious and Xtreme!
So like are we calling them “The Furious” now? Every super group has a name, The Avengers, The Beatles, Justice League, The Dream Team, and with the title The Fate of The Furious, I’m now declaring these people as “The Furious!” I think it’s a pretty cool idea, so let’s just go with that, because after the latest installment in this money making franchise, the last one made 1.5 BILLION dollars, Vin Diesel and company are legit super heroes. These movies just keep getting more over the top and ridiculous but you know what, I’m okay with it; in fact I absolutely love it. Going into it, if you’re not willing to turn off your brain, expect the most ridiculous of things to happen, and just laugh at how big Dwayne Johnson is, you’re just not living life to the fullest. Dwayne is actually so large, he in fact punches a huge metal wall and the after math looks like the Hulk just smashed the wall to shit, and by the way, his hand is fine! One thing these movies do, is to let us know how important family is, in fact I kept track of how many times the word “family” was said throughout the movie because I thought it would be something extremely high like 30, but it was just 16, and that made me sad. Family is the driving force of this movie and without spoiling the biggest reveal of the movie, okay I lied I’m going too! DOM TORETTO IS A FATHER PEOPLE! Wow that feels good to get off my chest, that’s right Dom knocked up Elena, that blonde cop from Fast Five, Dom is such a dirty dog! And like I said, his kid is the driving force for this story, and I’m calling it now, they will do an 18 year time jump in this franchise but no one will age except for the baby because like I said these people are super powered human beings. Wouldn’t that be cool a time jump, and now we are in 2036 and there are flying cars, I just blew my own mind. The writers of these movies should just contact me, because I have so many good ideas on where this franchise should go!
So the latest outing is directed by F. Gary Gray (Straight Outta Compton) and our entire beloved cast is back! Remember what franchise we are taking about here; the plot is insane, but simple at the same time. A mysterious woman Cipher (Charlize Theron) tracks down Dom, and blackmails/seduces him into working for her, but it isn’t revealed till much later in the movie, why Dom agreed to help her with such ease. So Dom goes rogue, and turns on the family, leaving Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) crushed and Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) in jail where Deckard (Jason Statham) is also being held. Tej (Ludacris), Roman (Tyrese) and Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) are also kicking around, and once it is revealed that Cipher is a cyber terrorist, such a clever name eh, it’s up to the team to track down Dom and take care of Cipher once and for all. I enjoy the cast in this franchise, they all know what’s going on, they are all aware of how ridiculous things are, but still they make it their own and I respect that. Statham and Johnson really meshed well in this; in fact they are the best part of the movie. There’s a joke where Deckard calls Hobbs “Hercules” and I laughed because Dwayne Johnson actually played him in a movie, so I wonder if that was a cheap shot, or just something they might have missed when writing the script. Or maybe I’m just a total nerd who knows too much about movies. Statham was the baddie in the last one, but he’s switched teams and I liked that aspect, actually so does his brother, who was the bad guy in Fast 6, jesus you need a Venn diagram to keep track of all this. Back to the cast, they all fill their roles well, and the one thing that I think lacked was the humor. Usually their little quips and banter back and forth works really well, in this I felt it kind of fell flat on its face. Which was unfortunate, because I was sitting in a packed house, and there wasn’t much laughter going on, not until the end, where it deals with the baby (which was actually hilarious), but it’s never a good sign when all of your jokes just aren’t working out. What they lack in laughs, they certainly make up for in action. I don’t know how they come up with some of the stuff that happens in these movies, a big bag of weed could be involved or maybe they just ask some 6 year olds to come up with some crazy action sequences, because some of the stuff going on here is BANANAS. At one point, Cipher and her team manage to hack into all the self driving cars in New York City, and it might be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen in a movie, actually I just lied, them driving on ice being chased by a submarine is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen. I lied again guys, I’m sorry I really am, HELEN MIRREN being in this movie is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen. Helen, my god, you sweet old lady you. I’m not going to lie, it works but really???? She plays the Mother of Decker and Owen, and she drops the only F-bomb of the movie, which was pretty great. This movie has Kurt Russell again, as Mr. Nobody and I can’t believe that they manage to get these legendary people, how much are they paying them, and it seems like Kurt Russell is having the time of his life making these movies. So good on him, because you might as well enjoy it rather than act like you want no part in being in this.
I’m just going to go on a little rant about how much I love Dwayne Johnson. Honestly he makes everything better. This franchise would be dead to rights if he hadn’t decided to come on board, and since he has, it has become what most people know it as today. He also might be the largest human on Earth; he picks people up in this, like a sack of potatoes, its great. I just believe he can do whatever he is doing in these movies, at one point he takes a torpedo and pushes it at a car, while hanging out of his own car, like he is a goddamn Olympic Curler. Thing probably weighs a ton and well isn’t nothing but a peanut to Hobbs. So if a franchise is ever in need of a reboot or a pick me up just call this man, and all your problems will be solved. So yes this movie is insane, things happen that will blow your mind. Like I still don’t know when these people became super heroes, maybe in Fast 5? I honestly want to see this cross over with The Avengers, because I think The Furious would maybe take the cake. They are the Kevin McAllister of super teams, give them some prep time and anything is possible!
One thing that disappointed me was the under utilization of Charlize Theron, she’s a badass woman, and all she did was stand in an airplane the entire time! She can throw down (watch the Atomic Blonde trailer) and I was hoping for some hand-to-hand stuff with her or maybe drive a car. She does get away in the end so she will be back, but I kind of felt cheated a little bit. She was a decent villain, like she got Dom to turn his back on family, if they didn’t show that in any trailers and no one knew about that going into this movie, would be a bigger twist than Sixth Sense ending. But like I’m trying to think back to the movie, and it’s almost a blur, just so much destruction and chaos, and it was hard to keep track of. There are so many characters now, it gets a little oversaturated, and it’s hard to give all these people something to do. These movies aren’t going anywhere for a long time, so hopefully they can clean that up before the next one, because it was probably the biggest problem of the movie. Like as I’m writing this review I forgot that Scott Eastwood joined the cast, he plays Little Nobody, and I really liked him! He was a great addition to the cast, I think he’s a really good young actor, but again they just keep adding people to these and at some point, enough is enough!
What can I say, going in I knew it would be over the top action, some horrible dialogue and a lot of white beaters, and I got just that. But this movie is going to make a billion dollars, people LOVE these movies and I don’t blame them. These are the best bad movies that Hollywood is pumping out today. Guilty pleasure for sure, and sometimes you need that in your life. They won’t win any awards, you will forget about it in a few days, but you will have a good time watching it, and isn’t that what going to the movies is all about? Get a large drink and popcorn, buckle up and prepare yourself for an overall enjoyable car ride.
One last thing, Paul Walker is no longer with us, and that sucks because I think he was truly the heart and soul of this franchise, but at the end of the movie, I saw it coming from a mile away. They name Dom’s kid Brian, to honor him and I just thought that was a real genuine movie moment. You could even see it on the actor’s faces, they really are a family, and I know they all miss him dearly, so to me that was just an awesome emotional moment. Looking forward to see what’s next, because the sky is the limit, literally they will probably have flying cars soon!
Check ya later,
Nate’s Movie Tour Reviews – The Fate of The Furious = 69/100