#Fast furious 9 series

It’s as if two maxims are now guiding the scripts: everyone’s hot and nobody gets hurt.

We’ve seen these same characters survive time and time again without so much as a bloody nose, so nothing happening on screen ever feels truly dangerous. So when a slow-motion climax attempts to rationalize the chances of a character surviving a ride in a Pontiac duct-taped to a rocket engine, the pro-science dialogue rings hollow.Įven when F9 makes an attempt to address how lucky these characters have been - in a terrible scene where the word “superheroes” is teased like a dirty word - the mere acknowledgment of their invincibility does damage to the film’s internal suspension of disbelief. This comes only after those same characters survive a one-on-14 firefight untouched and after a truck’s super-magnet pulls John Cena’s car (and nothing else) over from the other side of a city block. More than once, characters verbally espouse the objectivity of physics. One of F9’s gravest sins is in its mixed messaging. If Fast Five was an entry that left you awestruck, F9 is one that only leaves you wondering how much longer there is to go. Whereas the tactile action of Fast Five and Fast & Furious 6 makes both films studies in how much exemplary execution can add to a film’s overall impact, F9 washes over you and disappears before your eyes as invincible characters ping-pong across the screen. F9’s set pieces are maddeningly uninspired, with incoherent visual framing and yo-yoing suspense that feels as weightless and immaterial as a fistful of sand. This time, his staging - some of it still filmed for real - is more cartoonish, paling in comparison to past entries. Tom Cruise hangs onto planes Fast & Furious throws cars out of them, and the universe remains in balance. Under his watchful eye, the franchise also once enjoyed a reputation to a certain level of technical realism that rivals Mission: Impossible.

#Fast furious 9 series

The peaks of this franchise remain 2011’s Fast Five and 2013’s Fast & Furious 6, both directed by Lin and brilliant in how their action elevated the series visually and dramatically. The first time he took the reins, on 2006’s Tokyo Drift, Lin turned around a franchise doomed for the Walmart bargain bin, delivering an unpretentious and quietly progressive action saga far beyond its street-racing roots. Their story’s beginning brings the franchise back to its roots in small crimes and street racing, while its conclusion will prove deeply satisfying to anyone with particularly fond memories of 2001’s very first Fast and the Furious.īut that’s about all that’s good about F9, a mostly tragic L for director Justin Lin. No matter how wild F9 gets or how lost you become in the plot - and lost you’ll surely be, with rocket ships and spies amok - the film never loses sight of Dom and Jakob battling it out at the dramatic center.

Vin Diesel’s Dom comes head-to-head with brother Jakob (John Cena) in F9. F9 is smart to anchor its biggest story beats around Dom’s relationship with his estranged, equally buff sibling. There’s a grave reason pop culture’s most vocal family man has never before mentioned his own blood brother, and F9’s unraveling of their fraternal fracas is surprisingly thoughtful and carefully grounded. Running its main plot parallel with flashbacks to 1989, F9 is smart to anchor its biggest story beats around Dom’s relationship with his estranged, equally buff sibling. Jakob’s helping them get it, which puts him at odds with big brother Dom. Gunning for the device are Otto (Thue Ersted Rasmussen), the son of a dictator, and criminal mastermind Cipher (Charlize Theron, returning from Fate of the Furious), who’s secretly pulling the strings. You see, another high-tech doohickey could destroy the world, should it fall into the wrong hands. Responding, Dom soon encounters a character no Fast has made mention of: Jakob Toretto (John Cena), his younger brother. Nobody (Kurt Russell) sends a distress call to Dom and his tight-knit “family” (Ludacris, Tyrese Gibson, and Nathalie Emmanuel, all series regulars since entering in different sequels). Following 2017’s The Fate of the Furious, Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) is living a quiet life with Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and young son Brian until the enigmatic Mr. UniversalĪs it opens, F9 is about brotherhood. Jordana Brewster and Vin Diesel star in F9.