Amuse Productions

Photo Courtesy: The Big Issue

Going into this film, my expectations were low, guess you could say The Fast & Furious have run out of fuel… Ehmmm anyways, one of the most decorated, over the top, continuous, consistent, and high-octane franchises is now on its tenth installment. A milestone only few movie franchises reach. Regardless, this franchise somewhat holds a place in my heart, thanks to this movie series growing up I absolutely grew attached to the main car, the coveted 1969 Dodge Charger R/T, as well as any muscle car I saw on screen. Thus, as they’ve kept going and I’ve grown up now, my taste for these films may have changed a bit, but I still want to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Up until Furious 7, I believed these movies were great, they were literally outdoing themselves by dragging a vault in Fast 5, an 18 mile runway in Fast and Furious 6, and literally dropping cars from out of a plane in Furious 7. The stakes went up and the action went more over the top, and so it’s always a rule to remember when watching these films, reality is just nonexistent. There are different sets of rules in this universe, even we don’t understand them. From Fast 9 which seemed like a fever dream ego trip from its main protagonist Vin Diesel, to this film felt very different. Starting a feud with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and him making his own fun spinoff movie with Jason Statham in “Hobbs & Shaw”, it seemed like they tamed the beast that is Vin Diesel. When you become so involved in a movie franchise, alongside being it’s main character, it can send you into perfectionist mode, but it will also lead you to question every sense of a project. This film felt like Vin Diesel stepped aside and let the director finally do his job.

Photo Courtesy: The New York Times

To start with good points and not get into many spoilers, the film felt better in the direction of splitting everyone up. The “Family” we all follow was taken all in different directions which led to many interactions that all had a differing mood depending on the character for the scene. For some that may be jarring, but when a film is pure action, it can be a good break from in between all the explosions and ass kicking. John Cena was a great breath of fresh air in this movie as he felt a lot more natural and proving even from his WWE days, he simply just isn’t a villain at heart. Jason Mamoa played, what you could call a evil Jack Sparrow, but he was fun to listen to in his crazed ventures of poking fun at our heroes, while he pranced around menacingly at the same time. Out of all bad guys in this franchise, he actually felt evil and menacing, like he would do anything to reach his goal (credit to Charlize Theron as well for F8). Another cool thing was the action itself, it felt coherent and over the top at times, but again reality is not a thing in this universe, as well as since we had such splitting interactions with the characters, we could see different fighting styles and innovative and creative action sequences which felt new to a 10-film franchise. (P.S. John Cena hit the AA and the kid inside me jumped for joy).

Now to the veggies in this meat and potato dish. Without getting too much into it, there’s this kind of obnoxious sequence throughout the film but mainly plays in the first 15 minutes that literally plays 5 songs back-to-back-to-back from their Fast and Furious mixtape which totally feels unnatural and out of place. It’s more like a shoehorned in ad that absolutely kills the mood. Roman Pierce and Tej Parker just aren’t funny anymore… It’s ok for any film to have a comedic relief, but when its a joke every time your character speaks on screen, it makes the film feel like comedy instead of an action movie and takes you away from the story. For example, Dom and Han are having a serious talk and are interrupted by Roman who pulls in a completely unnatural and awkward joke just to ruin the tension of this otherwise nice moment between our characters. Now, I don’t only want grim and death, but make your film a little more serious and have your characters actually mean something to the film. I don’t fully blame Tyrese Gibson because I’m not sure as to how much his involvement with his character is, but I blame it more on the writers that are forcing it waaaaay too much, it’s overkill at this point. Brie Larson could’ve been cut from the movie and the outcome would’ve been the same. Her character seemed to be written in more importantly than she turned out to be, because she didn’t really do much, sure she did help one of our characters (avoiding spoilers), yet this character could’ve done it without her anyways, it was pointless and maybe Scott Eastwood was busy.(?) That’s another point, he just was in the movie for like 5 minutes, and was abruptly cut, no mention or no showing, I have no clue what happened, he seemed to be in line as almost Brian’s replacement in the story, but I guess they had other plans. Look, if an actor is unavailable, for me it’s best to write them off of this story and include them in the next, it was just weird and made you question why he was even in the movie to begin with.

Photo Courtesy: GeekTyrant

Overall, it’s not a bad film, hell it’s a great pass time to just throw on when it comes out at home and just turn your brain off. It’s entertaining and sometimes coherent, yet lacks that emotion they want us to feel out of this movie and it’s characters. Sure we’ve grown attached to them, but is it more unoriginality to not write anymore character traits to these people, or simply just comfortability in the universe you created. Take for instance Creed III, a fantastic action/drama that translated any emotion beautifully. However, I really don’t connect with Dom, because well Dom is simply just invincible in these films now and just isn’t the gearhead relatable guy we saw in those first few installments. (I will review Creed III next). Seeing an interview recently with Ludacris told the story as to why they haven’t stopped making the movies, and directly indirectly says because of the global revenue they bring in, and we know they COULD keep pumping these films out, but SHOULD they? I know we’re reaching the final installment, but it really felt like that image of Paul Walker in his White Supra riding off into the sunset with “See You Again” by Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth will just not be topped as an absolutely perfect ending, yet I do have faith, or so the kid inside me says so… SCORE:7/10