In hindsight, I’m mad at myself for not seeing the insane franchise potential of The Fast and the Furious movies. Awesome cars doing awesome stunts, simple universal themes, hot oiled up macho men, and big booty babes. I think every person on the planet is into at least one of those things. The Fate of the Furious lacks the emotional resonance of Furious 7 because none of the leads died during production, but it still taps into that lizard brain joy of watching a 1970’s beater on fire beat the fastest car in Cuba in a race.
We open with Dom (Vin Diesel) and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) on honeymoon in Cuba, winning over the island with their car acumen. Dom is then coerced by an elite hacker named Cipher (Charlize Theron) to betray Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) on a mission for an EMP. The rest of Dom’s team: Letty, Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Ludacris), and Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) seek out what the hell happened to their ring leader with the help of Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) and his junior associate (Scott Eastwood). Meanwhile, Hobbs gets sent to prison where he has to confront Deckard (Jason Statham) who severely wants to settle the score with Hobbs since he’s the reason Deckard is in jail.
Fate of the Furious sticks to the formula that built the franchise into a juggernaut. Family is front and center, as we learn more about Deckard and Hobbs and what family drives them as they integrate into the team and Dom has some BIG stuff happen to his extended family. The jokiness is hit and miss, with these people needling each other constantly. It works in the small moments, when The Rock and Jason Statham talk about how much they would beat up the other or Ludacris and Tyrese Gibson fighting for Nathalie Emmanuel’s affections, but when shit is going down, Tyrese Gibson/Ludacris’s wisecracking feels out of place and strips any danger the leads should be feeling. The Rock and Jason Statham have added a new dimension of badass hand/gun combat to these movies, with the Rock using Hulklike powers and Statham showcasing amusing gunplay. Most importantly, for me at least, the car stunts totally deliver. The opening race in Havana is ridiculously fun (mentioned above), culminating in an exploding car engulfed in flames flying into the ocean; I’ll watch that every time. The cars look amazing, and wrecking balls, grappling hooks, EMPs, and nuclear submarines all get weaved in and used in totally fun ways that make you go “OOOO!!” or “Whoa” or “How did they do that?”, exactly what you want these movies to do.
Simplicity in a movie is not always a negative. Making a story easy to understand provides a universality for larger audiences to connect. The Fate of the Furious taps into that like its predecessors, and generates that guttural pleasure you get from hearing the word poop or seeing someone fall. What superstar are they going to get next to take part? I’d like to see the Avengers take on these superheroes to see who would fare better.