I am continually baffled by the popularity of this series. It’s not that I don’t like dumb action movies. If you want to run a marathon of c-grade Van Damme and Seagal movies, I’m in. I’ll bring the beer and we’ll have ourselves a great night. The problem here is that the characters in these films are the worst humans on the planet outside of terrorists. These are the people that pull into the bar parking lot doing 80mph in 10-year-old BMWs, order a round of Fireball shots, put $50 of worth of Drake on the jukebox and ask the bartender to crank it while everyone else in there is trying to watch a ballgame. These characters are the dregs of society and I got tired of their bullshit five movies ago. And yet here I am reviewing part 8. Because I’m an idiot.
Anyhoo, when we last left the gang they had crashed some cars in an unlikely fashion and Vin Diesel humbled some hackneyed horseshit about family. Picking up from that cliffhanger, we find that Dom (Vin Diesel) is now being blackmailed into turning on his friends by a hacker named Cipher. No, really, her freaking name is Cipher. So, Mr. Nobody (tragically played by Kurt Russell, who deserves better) brings together Dom’s old team to stop Dom and Cipher before they gain control of a nuke. Did Dom really turn on everyone? Is the old gang really being torn apart? Were you dropped on your head repeatedly as a child? If the answer to the last question was “no,” then there is likely little suspense to be gained from the first two questions.
These movies don’t really lend themselves to coherent analysis, as they are mainly excuses to put good-looking people in stupid action sequences while occasionally yelling something inane for the trailers. As such, I just have a few random thoughts. First, these movies actually became more entertaining when they introduced The Rock and Jason Statham, which is likely because they have more charisma than any of the original cast. Unfortunately, they are sidelined for much of this entry and we are left with the nonexistent suspense of Dom’s story for much of the running time. That makes this far less entertaining (and I use that word loosely) than the last couple of movies. Second, the movie doesn’t even have as many extravagant action scenes as the last couple of films. As dumb as Furious 7 was, it at least through increasingly preposterous action sequences at you constantly. That distracted the audience from the plot, which was a good idea. With fewer distractions, one has more time to think about things and that is not a luxury with this series. Finally, this movie has an almost adorably quaint concept of hacking. Cipher (really, her name is Cipher) can literally hack any machine on the planet with a few keystrokes. I wondered if the producers went back to 1995, grabbed the guy that wrote Hackers and asked him to write this script without any updates about how the world has changed. They should have just cast Angelina Jolie and made her the same character from Hackers. I at least would have gotten a laugh out of that.
I don’t like this series, but this may be the worst one of the bunch. The action scenes are surprisingly dull, the characters are awful and the writers seem to have even stopped trying. I just wanted it to end. Dear god, did I want it to end. But don’t you worry, Fast & Furious fans. Parts 9 and 10 already have release dates set. So do some exhaust work to your Jettas, blast some Chance the Rapper tunes and your heroes will be back before you know it. I need a drink.
Image By: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fate_of_the_Furious#/media/File:The_Fate_of_The_Furious_Theatrical_Poster.jpg
