F9 2021

How do you review a movie like F9? At this point in the series, if you buy a ticket, you know what you're getting into. The pretense of being a serious crime drama of the early installments is gone. You are just going to get a wild ride.

...and sometimes that is okay.

I’m the first to criticize the films in this series. I think the second film might actually be the worst movie ever committed to celluloid. Or videotape. Or streaming. You know what I mean. I think the characters are hard to follow...are they alive or dead? That’s flexible. Never since Star Trek did a cast feel so much like a diversity checklist. I feel like marketing came in and said, “Okay, we need an African American….but can we make them Muslim? That gets us two checkmarks…”

That’s not to say the characters aren’t fun. I actually find Tyrese Gibson’s character fun....but notice I don’t know the character’s name? Or Ludacris? Or Vin Diesel...who I know is Dom, but I find that character so tedious, that I’ve been cheering for the Rock to come and knock him off since the fifth installment. Oh, please, please, please, let that happen.

But these movies are not about character development. They are about MacGuffins. For the uninitiated, a MacGuffin is a plot device...an object in a movie script (which I heard this movie actually had) that all the characters in the film want. In the 60s these were generally briefcases with files. Pulp Fiction actually brought that back. In the 70s, microfilm was a favorite. Nowadays, you see disks and USB drives fairly often. Even Star Wars had a MacGuffin or did you forget that movie was all about recovering the plans to the Death Star?

In this movie, our MacGuffin is some sort of weird globe that was cut in two. It needs to be recovered because if the two halves are reunited with an activating key, you can … well, you can rule the world. Basic Bond villain stuff here. What I get a kick out of is people ripped into James Bond in the late 90s for this kind of nonsense and pointed to the grittiness of movies like Fast and the Furious as the new feel for action films. Now, the two franchises have nearly switched seats (some would say for the detriment of both.)

While Bond typically did its stunts practically, the outlandish visual nonsense you are subjected to in these flicks appear to be primarily cartoons. The attachment to physics, particularly this installment’s questionable approach to magnetism, is tenuous at best. But you just have to keep repeating to yourself, “I’m the idiot that bought the ticket. And I’ve done it eight times before. So I’m supporting this crap. It’s my fault.”

I actually laughed out loud at the movie’s insane stunts (if you can call output from a PS4 game, which these sometimes resembled, a stunt) more than a couple comedies I’ve seen recently. I should mention, by the way, that the CGI, while it annoys me, is excellent in the film. It looks as realistic as you can expect at the state of the art and these visual artists should really be commended for making the completely unrealistic situations in the film appear feasible.

If I ever fall off the top of a building, I’m going to look for a car to fall onto; apparently, they are made of mats and foam because they broke some pretty insane falls in this flick.

John Cena should be commended with playing the part of...well, let’s get real. Vin Diesel and Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson can’t be in the same room anymore, so they needed a replacement and Cena is freakishly gigantic, too. But he did well with his “heel turn” here playing the heavy. (Yet another trope of action films this movie is slave to. The rich “true villain” hires muscle, or the “heavy,” to perform the heavy lifting.) Charlize Theron is back, too, from whichever installment she was in. She is oddly taking this all very seriously. I’m not sure if she doesn’t know these movies are a joke or she’s intent on playing straight in hopes it comes off all the more jarring by doing so.

References to family, of course, dot the script but not to the nauseating extent some previous installments. F9 really feels like a movie put together by a creative team that has looked at the franchise and have specifically picked the things that have worked and punctuating those notes while shaving off a lot of the junk that didn’t work. For those that love the “saga” aspects of our characters’ continuing tales, that stuff is here, though I tend to watch these all as standalone films since the ongoing story is just as ridiculous as everything else. I know there was one reveal, in particular, that was total fan service and I thought “This is just proof I’m not a Millenial. I don’t care at all about this character. Can we move on?”

So did I like it? I hate myself for it, but yeah, it was fun. The action is well filmed and there is a ton of it. You can have a lot of fun with these films if you let yourself. So let go of logic and intelligence, sit back with your popcorn, and watch cars act like you used to zoom around your toy cars as a child. Remember, I’m the idiot that bought the ticket. And I’ve done it eight times before. So I’m supporting this crap. It’s my fault.

“Y'all ever thought about how many wild missions we been on? How we somehow... always survive?

Think about this. We've now been on insane missions around the world, doing what most would say is damn near impossible.

And I ain't got one single scar to show for it?”

The above quote, in my opinion, perfectly sums up the film. A good action flick should keep you on the edge of your seat, with adrenaline coursing through your veins. However, this is the most monotonous and uninteresting picture I've seen this year. You don't experience any emotion at all, and everything feels forced. Actions appear to have no repercussions, and everyone is as strong and fortunate as the writing requires at the time. There is no sense of impending doom or dread.

The acting is becoming increasingly mediocre; and the more the film attempts to push the "Family" narrative, the more unbearable the experience becomes. There are no noteworthy moments, just cliché after cliché. This franchise has come a long way from its beginnings, but not in any appreciable way. There's nothing wrong with crafting a simple action film that doesn't take itself too seriously and serves primarily as entertainment, but this is a poor attempt.

5.0/10 (Worst in the Franchise thus far)

The Fast and Furious franchise has, since quite a few movies back, abandoned all pretense of being anything but silly, unrealistic, action extravaganzas. That means that these movies are not to everyone’s taste (which no movies really are for that matter) but it seems a lot of those people have watched this movie anyway and then pretends to be surprised.

Those who give this movie one star ratings have obviously never seen a real one star movie and those asshats that start their review with “I left after xx minutes” are just trolls. If you have not watched the movie, all of it, don’t write a bloody “review”.

To me this movie was pretty much what I expected. Perhaps even a bit more silly and over the top than the previous ones, not that this was much of a surprise, but still more or less what I expected.

It has a half decent, quite predictable, story that’s just good enough to tie the action sequences together. I do whish stupid Hollywood writers that probably never finished basic school would stop write stories with their favorite “device yyy which can take over all electronics” bullshit in them. Apart from being total scientific nonsense it is really, really overused.

Vin Diesel is Vin Diesel. I cannot remember many, if any, movies where I have not liked his character. His team is pretty likable as well although some of their silly shenanigans and ramblings was indeed a bit tiresome from time to time.

The core of the movie is of course the action and special effects. Sure, they are incredibly over the top and for the most of the time you have to put your brain in idle when watching them but if you, like me, like special effects this is a movie for you. The silly scene where the bad guys “tank train” flipped over was a bit too much for me as well but on the whole I enjoyed the action.

I was not too thrilled with all the flashbacks but then I almost never like flashbacks and there was plenty of them in this movie.

I would have liked Chipher to have a bigger role in the movie. She is cool as well as intelligent which is not something that really could be said about Dom’s brother. The main bad guy was just a jerk and not very charismatic. Hollywood really seems to have a problem writing good bad guys lately.

Overall, this was some well spent almost two and a half hours (I watched the directors cut). I quite enjoyed this movie.

I've watched every F&F movie and I've never felt the need to rant about them. Were they good? **** no! But a majority of them had some subjective enjoyment to them. There's been plenty of commentary about how it's just got outlandish. They even poke fun at it in their movies. However when you go on with a brother that became some kind of chaotic ex-government agent, and you need to go to space to defeat them. I kinda just lose faith. I mean come on. Some of the flashbacks to Dom & Jakobs childhood and relationship with their father was a nice touch. But you've just tried to push a bad guy for no reason. He somehow goes from fixing a race and accidentally killing his old man, to being a mother****ing super secret agent and then turning? For some reason? That's not explained. It's absolutely ridiculous. There's so much that could've been done to improve this movie. It clearly had a good potential storyline. But so much was shoved into it that was absolutely unnecessary. F&F brings back Mia to just have another familiar face and make it feel like Paul Walker was still alive but you could've at least done some scenes about her and Jakobs relationship together, to actually make it feel like you're not jerking to ex-14 year old boys (Including me) nostalgia of watching F&F in the movies 10 years ago.

I know they've planned another movie, and it would honestly surprise me if it didn't continue further, but this is getting kinda crazy.

Wow, what a pile of horseshit.

The plot (and I'm being generous by calling it that) is beyond ridiculous and nonsensical. The acting is either phoned in by actors who CAN act (Ms Mirren) or stinks up the screen by those who CANNOT act... I'm looking at you John Cena.

This is 2hr 20mins I'll never get back that I can add to the 10+ hours this crappy franchise has stolen from me. I rate only the first and the fifth as being slightly memorable in the least.

More fool me for continuing to watch this trash.

Oh, and before I go, I heard someone in the production crew saying that Vin Diesel calls from time to time and has deep conversations about what and where in life Dom would be... Seriously.

They should all be ashamed of themselves. Fucking adult toddlers thinking any of this is actually worth the slightest measure of positivity to the world.

A horrendous waste of time. If they make a 10th and it stays on this trajectory, it'll be the worst destruction of an original idea since Die Hard... Actually scratch that. This is wanky crap and always has been. It'll be just the empty-minded hollow nonsense that it deserves to be.

3/10

F9 speeds onto the screen with a mix of excitement and disappointment. While I wouldn't label it as the worst installment in the franchise, it certainly lacks the punch and adrenaline rush, especially after the high note that Fast 7 played.

The film's action sequences feel disjointed, failing to jolt the anticipated adrenaline rush. The opening sequences attempted to burst into high-octane moments with explosions and spectacle, but they never really delivered the gripping excitement expected. The subsequent action scenes veer into run-of-the-mill territory, especially in the process of the Avengers-like assembling of characters with the return of Mia and Han. Many action sequences feel arbitrary, lacking narrative purpose.

However, to the film credits, the action gains momentum in its second half after the team assembled. The Fast franchise always has gimmicks and here's where the film's gimmick comes into play - electromagnetic tricks. The creative use of this concept in the final battle injects some much-needed freshness in an otherwise stale action sequences.

What makes F9 a very dull Fast film is its attempt at adopting a darker tone, which falters heavily. The pivotal brotherly feud between Dom and Jakob lacks the necessary kick for the audience to care enough about the newly introduced character. The underdeveloped relationship fails to justify the character introspection and moments of fragility. The actors struggle to convey the conflict, hindered by lackluster scripts and dialogue.

This darker tone is contrasted to the usual Fast humor and banter which fail to maintain a nice blend of tonal consistency. There is an appreciable attempt to satirize the implausibility of the characters' invincibility, a self-awareness that permeates the film. However, it feels too on-the-nose as the script repeats the point on and on.

In the end, F9 doesn't reach the heights of its predecessors, lacking in both thrilling action and bogged down by its attempt to be serious and darker. While it has its moments, it falls short of delivering the exhilarating experience fans have come to expect from the Fast & Furious franchise. If you wanted to watch F9, I suggest to skip right onto the second half. You won't miss anything.

I don't know where the fun and joy of the "Fast & Furious" movies disappeared to in "F9". Here, everyone in front of and behind the camera seems to be working on autopilot. Vin Diesel doesn't appear to be in the mood to do this film at all. Furthermore, in every shot, it looks like his face was altered with some half-baked deaging technology. And was he ever even on set with the other actors? New to the cast is John Cena as Dom's brother Jacob; siblings you've never heard of are part of every daily soap, after all. Unfortunately, Cena isn't allowed to be funny; he just doesn't work for me in serious roles. The return of Charlize Theron's Cipher isn't something I'm excited about either.

I did like a few things, though, like the return of the "Tokyo Drift" crew. Also, Sung Kang finally gets to be in the mix again. And I love that the series is finally going into space. Of course, that's incredibly stupid, but I definitely prefer it a thousand times over the dull main storyline. Of the action sequences, the only one that sticks in my mind is the one with the magnets, which are very picky about what they pull towards them and what not. But it's better than every single hand-to-hand fight scene. I don't know if the series has another entertaining movie in it; this one definitely wasn't one.