The Fate of the Furious – Film Review

With Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez) married, Brian and Mia retired and the rest of the crew exonerated, the globe-trotting team has found some semblance of a normal life. They soon face an unexpected challenge when a mysterious woman named Cipher (Charlize Theron) forces Dom to betray them all. Now, they must unite to bring home the man who made them a family and stop Cipher from unleashing chaos.

I genuinely can’t believe I have finally watched all of the Fast and Furious movies now, leading up to the release of Justin Lin‘s F9 this coming Friday. The only reason why I hadn’t watched them sooner was that it seemed to be an intimidating task – watching eight movies in a series is not something that everybody is going to be up for, especially when the majority of the films in said series are close to two-and-a-half hours.

But I figured this series had to be popular for a reason. Why do so many audiences flock to the theatres opening weekend to see a bunch of muscular guys driving around cars and fighting people? What’s up with Dominic Toretto’s obsession with doing everything for his family? I needed to know what was so beloved about these films and now that I’ve seen them all I can honestly say from the bottom of my heart that I, too, love this franchise.

It is extremely absurd at times and can feature some insanely over-the-top stunts, but the beauty of it all is that the filmmakers are aware of this. They are not trying to make a movie that is going to be nominated for all of these serious awards or anything. They want to make a high-adrenaline action film with cars and badass dudes and they pull it off so well nearly every single time. The Fate of the Furious, the eighth film in the long-running Fast Saga as it’s officially deemed, is an insane amount of fun.

A big reason as to why is the story. I actually found it to be fairly intense, which is a feeling I didn’t usually get when watching these films. Dominic Toretto is essentially the protagonist of the saga and he is always shown to be quite the intimidating guy. Usually, whenever somebody gets on his bad side, it almost never goes well for them. Not only does he know how to drive a car and do some extremely impressive stunts and maneuvers, but he is also deadly.

So the fact that he is essentially the villain in this film makes it all the more intense because we have seen first-hand time and time again that Dom is dangerous and those that try to stop him usually end up getting hurt severely. Seeing Dom’s team go up against him was not only incredibly fun to watch but it was quite suspenseful as well.

The Fate of the Furious is also jam-packed with tons of over-the-top, wildly amusing car sequences that were absolutely designed to please an audience and they succeeded and then some. Even if you don’t really care about cars too much in real life, the filmmakers ensure that you are still going to have a great time.

Of course, it is a Fast and Furious movie so it’s going to be goofy and it’s not going to be the type of movie that you’d see at awards ceremonies, but that’s kind of the point. There’s a reason why so many people flock to the theatres to see the newest entry in the saga – they’re genuinely a blast to watch.

Chris Morgan writes action scenes in a way that few other screenwriters today know how to do. He has zany ideas and they all translate extremely well to the big screen. Usually, these movies are directed by Justin Lin, but The Fate of the Furious has a new director in F. Gary Gray of Friday and Straight Outta Compton fame and he does a wonderful job in the director’s chair here. His signature style is easy to recognize here and I think that the studio made a great choice in switching up directors even if it’s just for one installment because it is refreshing to see different director’s styles in the Fast and Furious universe.

The Fast and Furious movies were designed from the top down to be entertaining, action-packed, and full of high-octane adrenaline that never lets up. The Fate of the Furious is certainly one of the franchise’s best to date, even if it never quite reaches the highs of Fast Five or the emotionally riveting ending of Furious 7.