The Fate of The Furious: The honest opinion of a loyal fan
SPOILERS WARNING: If you haven’t seen the movie and plan to so so then it’s best advised that you go no further. If you don’t mind being told specific part of an unseen film then, by all means, read ahead with my review of The Fate of the Furious.
Friday night I had the privilege of seeing another installment of one of my favorite franchises– The Fate of the Furious. For years I loved the action, the reference to family and the inside jokes between the characters. When The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) came on board I figured the franchise may be doing too much with these new characters but he quickly became a part of the clan.
Then Paul Walker died and for many of us, we wanted it to end there.
[Mark]Fast 8 is the first movie with the entire cast minus Walker and to be honest– we didn’t miss him. It’s not a knock on Walker’s acting skills but we knew the show must move on. The casting was done great with the normal crew back and the addition of Charlize Theron added spice but there was still something lacking with her presence.
The promos gave off an indication that Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) had flipped sides and while we knew there had to be a reason– we were shocked to find out why.
From the beginning, we could see what we were in store for. More unbelievable car scenes as Dom won a race with the oldest car in the world against what was the fastest car in Havana. Did I mention he won the race with the car on fire, while driving backward? Yes, that’s how the movie started off. From there is when Cipher (Theron) made her appearance and handed Dom a phone with a video that we never saw, but later we got an idea of what was on it.
After Toretto double-crossed his team–the hunt was on as his crew tried to figure out why he switched.
The team followed Toretto to New York and witnessed one of the craziest moments in the franchise’s existence. Cipher hacked half the cars in Manhattan and watched as vehicles started falling out the sky (literally). That was a moment that could’ve been left out. As Dom was cornered he somehow managed to escape with the help of an ally we didn’t see coming.
Their next run-in with Dom took them to a place that was more James Bond than Fast and Furious. There was a submarine involved and that entire action sequence just looked out-of-place. There was a Lamborghini driven by Roman (Tyrese Gibson) on a sheet of ice. When we saw that– the writers had to know what would go through our minds. No more that 5 minutes later, they tried their best to explain it as Taz (Ludacris) asked Roman if he forgot to put snow tires on the Lambo. It was an attempt at humor but it was clear a mistake was made.
As the movie wound down from their big action climax and the family was made whole again we were left wondering– if this should be it? There are still two more movies to go and it’s clear that Cipher will be the main villain down the line as she managed to escape (the first time that has happened).
All-in-all, I loved The Fate of the Furious minus their normal “there is no way that can happen moments”, however, we’ve grown accustomed to them by now. The family may have included two more members with Deckard Shaw (Jason Stratham) and his brother Owen (Luke Evans).
Oh wait, we can’t forget the best addition–little Brian Toretto.
Rating 4/5
Mark has been covering Sports and Entertainment for the past six years. His work has been featured on Bleacher Report, ESPN, Fox Sports, Teen Vogue, and many other websites.
