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The Fate of the Furious
STARRING: Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez
DIRECTOR: F Gary Gray
Genre: Action
Rating: PG-15
136 mins
Eight films into the Fast and the Furious series, it’s amazing to think it’s still going. What started out as an illegal street racing movie has long since jumped the shark … and a few skyscrapers and submarines to boot.
No eighth movie in any franchise has any right to be as fun or effective as Fate manages to be, but it largely succeeds because the film knows it’s ridiculous. It’s as outlandishly entertaining as you might expect, providing you remember to disengage your brain and grab a barrel of popcorn before entering the cinema.
Many thought that the previous instalment would be the last after the tragic death of series stalwart Paul Walker, but it is credit to the writers that a story with a catchy hook came to fruition this far down the line.
Essentially, Dominic Toretto (Diesel) betrays his team for mysterious reasons, joining hacker queen Cipher (Charlize Theron) to help fulfil her nefarious agenda.
With Dom now an agent of Cipher’s, the team, or rather, ‘family’ as we are constantly reminded, Letty (Rodriguez), Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Ludacris), Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) and Luke Hobbs (Johnson) are recruited by a mysterious figure to pursue Dom and Cipher and clear themselves in the process. They also gain a surprise ally in Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw, the villain of Furious 7.
It looks like they quickly forgot about his murder of Han in the last film, then, but when you can get Statham back on the bill and breaking bones, who cares?
The hunt for Dom takes them to New York City and Russia. The Manhattan sequence is the movie’s most insane and effective action set-piece as Cipher’s hackers commandeer waves of cars with auto-drive chips to become her unwitting drone army.
The final act is essentially one prolonged chase across the ice in Russia. If you ever wanted to see The Rock surf a torpedo or cars take on a nuclear sub then Fate of the Furious is the movie for you and you don’t need me to sell it.
However, this whole sequence goes on for way too long (always a problem with the endings of these films … does anybody remember the world’s longest runway from the sixth film?), culminating in some truly logic-defying antics even by this series’ admittedly low standards.
The hand-to-hand combat here is likewise over-the-top, especially Dwayne Johnson’s bone-crunching brawling. Jason Statham also gets several cool action moments, but it’s these two rivals’ verbal sparring that proves even more ridiculously macho as their insults grow increasingly crude yet funny as the film proceeds.
But the real standout among the cast is the series’ new adversary. Theron brings the proper degree of icy cruelty to Cipher, who is essentially a Bond villain. She operates out of a jet, has a seemingly endless supply of henchmen, and harbours plans for global domination. In fact, the only letdown is that we never get to see Theron, who previously burned rubber in The Italian Job and Mad Max: Fury Road, behind the wheel.
Iconic actress Helen Mirren also has a scene-stealing cameo, although her role in the plot is best left as a surprise.
The Fate and the Furious is still incredibly-watchable, adrenaline-fuelled fare. Essentially, it’s a superhero franchise now, and while the lack of street racing is still somewhat disappointing, you have to admire how the series constantly tries to out-do itself and not take itself seriously.
Honestly, if Dom joined a super-soldier programme in the next instalment, or they drove the first cars in space and crashed through the windows of the International Space Station, I wouldn’t bat an eye.
Overall, it provides plenty of the high-octane escapism and ridiculously elaborate vehicular mayhem fans of the series expect, while also laying the groundwork for a new phase in the franchise.
Showing in: Cineco, Seef I & II, Wadi Al Sail, Saar, Al Jazeera, Dana, Novo, Mukta A2
Rating: 4/5
