Fate of the Furious

         

Fate of the Furious

Dir: F. Gary Gray

Cast: Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Jason Statham,

Ludacris, Tyrese, Charlize Theron, Kurt Russell, Scott Eastwood

Spoilers Ahead (proceed with caution)

    

    Eight movies in sixteen years seems quite impressive for a franchise that started 

as a movie about illegal street racing. It shows no signs of slowing down. In fact 

the stunts seem to get bigger than the previous installment.

    Vin Diesel returns in his role as famed street racer Dom Toretto. This time
we find him living the quiet life down in Cuba with wife Letty (Rodriguez).
That comes to a screeching halt when he meets Cipher (Theron), a mystery
woman with dirt on Dom's past. She blackmails him into doing her dirty 
work that includes causing property damage and injuring people.

    Special Agt. Hobbs (Johnson) is coaching his daughters soccer team when he

gets the call to assemble his team. The only people that know Dom the best are

his friends. Kurt Russell helps them as Mr. Nobody, a secret govt ops

agent who uses spy tech to track Dom down. Scott Eastwood fills the

pretty boy quota as his trainee. Roman (Tyrese) and hacker Tej (Ludacris)

play off each other well trading insults back and forth.

   

    Also joining the team is criminal Deckard Shaw (Statham) who's got an 

axe to grind with Cipher because she coerced his brother Owen to do her

bidding. Her team steals the surveillance system (God's Eye) and uses it to
her advantage to keep tabs on Dom. The fate of a nuclear war lies in the 
hands of Hobbs team & they must stop her before it's too late.

     The franchise stresses the importance of family and Fast 7 felt like a heart-

felt goodbye letter to Paul Walker, Dom's metaphorical brother. This time 
around it felt like empty, soulless cash grab that should've ended. Universal
will keep milking this series until it stops making them money. 

     The plot becomes your usual action fare with big, loud explosions and 

crashes that would make Michael Bay jealous. Jason Statham's character
was the bad guy in the previous and now treated like a member of Dom's crew.
This movie completely forgets everything that was established in the previous
films. 

     Although these movies seem to become a major franchise with more 

sequels lined up, the plots are becoming dumber and dumber. It has 
become a parody of itself with it's over the top action scenes. It's just 
a matter of time until this franchise runs out of steam.

  Grade: C