The Fate of the Furious (’17 review)

3 outta 5

The Fate of the Furious offers more of the vehicular mayhem and crunchy action that the series has been known for.   The film is knowingly dopey, which is key because if it took itself too seriously it wouldn’t work.  The spectacle in the later installments of the series has gotten so huge that it’s basically impossible to top.  Fate can sort of vaguely match the previous craziness.  Most of the actors here are game and the antagonist is great.  Although it’s certainly not about great acting, it’s about looking cool, making cool quips, insane robberies, driving fast, big brawls and stuff blowing up.  Although it is starting to feel a tad wearying around the edges, as more crazy twists are added to keep the franchise engine rolling. 

Dom (Vin Diesel) is living the high life with the love of his life, Letty (Michelle Rodriquez).  But the mysterious, deadly, well armed and rich hacker Chiper (Charlize Theron) forces him to turn against his “family” of crooks and drivers.  Now Dom is battling his crew, Letty, Hobbs (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson), Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Parker (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges) and Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) as Cipher is using Dom to acquire weapons of mass destruction.    The Dom-less crew is recruited by the government spooks, Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) a sidekick they nickname Little Nobody (Scott Eastwood), and Nobody has also tossed in former enemy, Deckard (Jason Statham), to assist.   They have to beat Dom at his own game and Dom is determined to not let that happen.

The Fast and Furious series has morphed from its humble street racing caper beginnings to basically becoming ensemble superhero flicks with cars.   Diesel’s Dom started the series as the antagonist but now he’s grown into the father figurehead.  By turning him into a bad guy for Fate, it supposedly resets him at zero but he’s never quite nasty enough, begrudgingly being dragged along with Cipher’s scheme.  The reason why Dom turned evil could have been weird, evil clone or robot replicant would not be out of the realm of possibility in this series, but the reveal of Cipher’s power over him is pretty basic stuff.   It’s as if the movie wants Dom to be evil but doesn’t stick to its convictions.  The closest the thing gets to emotional resonance is when Rodriquez’s Letty confronts Dom as Rodriquez sells Letty’s sadness.

A lot of Diesel’s stuff involves him with Theron and he does a lot of growling and sulking and some oddly placed screaming when he reiterates that he’s “ALONE!”  Theron is awesomely oozing evil.   She’s very slick, seductively purring to Dom or giving him a cold, crazy stare.  It’s kind of fun to watch her act circles around Diesel.  Although she is yet another baddie in the Furious franchise who is the “best of the best”, which is odd considering that the last two villains have been the “best of the best”.  She has a sidekick played by Game of Thrones vet Kristopher Hivju and he manages to growl at Diesel’s level.   Statham mostly just snarls at Johnson but they both have a really good hate / hate chemistry.  Surprisingly, Helen Mirren pops up in two scenes as a critical plot piece and she plays the right note of campy hardass.   Slowly, the series seems to becoming a Johnson starring vehicle as he makes cracks and leads the good guys.  Gibson has some decent quips and a pretty badass moment where he’s sick of not being taken seriously so he beats up a bunch of guys on snowmobiles with a car door, Parker gives a few “whoos!” as things happen, and Emmanuel is a hot hacker that Parker literally comments on how she’s a hot hacker.  Russell makes exposition lively although his underling played by Eastwood is pretty wimpy, even getting literally tossed around by Johnson.

While nothing in this movie is as insane as them jumping a car across buildings in Furious Seven there is a fairly zippy clip of action throughout. The opening race, one of the few leftover stylistic flourishes from the original installment, has Dom setting a car on fire and him crossing the finish line backwards as he dives out to safety.  Probably the craziest scene is when Cipher takes over a fleet of auto-driving cars and sets them loose, literally causing a cavalcade of cars to fall from the sky.   Johnson and Statham are in a nifty prison riot although the camera is a bit too shaky at times to appreciate the action.   One of the best bits is when Statham’s Deckard tries to take over an airplane filled with gun toting bad guys as Statham has to interact with a very tiny co-star, and it’s genuinely hilarious as Deckard makes sure his little charge is okay in between brutally beating goons.

The Fate of the Furious isn’t a high water mark for the series; that will probably stand as Fast and Furious 6.  Happily, this film is still enjoyable.  It’s a everything and the kitchen sink combination of cameos, jokey moments, cheesy seriousness and vehicle spectacle.   At its worst, Fate can descend into a confusing jumble of vroom noises, rapid cuts and hollering but, overall, there’s just enough gas in the tank.