WASHINGTON — The “Fast & Furious” franchise has driven a long, winding road.
It zoomed off the starting line with a sweet new-car smell in 2001, lost a little speed as a used car in the 2003 sequel, hit a major speed bump in the third installment, crashed in the fourth chapter, got souped up with The Rock for its best ride in “Fast Five” (2011), coasted on positive fumes into the sixth chapter, and found seventh heaven watching the late Paul Walker drive off into the sunset.
If you thought Walker’s final bow was a touching, fitting, poetic place for the franchise to wave the checkered flag, you probably value art over cash in a way that Hollywood does not. There’s already a 10-film rollout strategy with the slogan, “2 Decades, 10 Films, 1 Saga,” with Chapter 9 set for 2019 and Chapter 10 for 2021. But who are we to judge their motives? Everyone grieves in different ways.
And so we get “The Fate of the Furious,” dubbed “F8.” Die-hards will see the “8” as an exciting Figure 8 track, while detractors will turn the “8” sideways as a tired sign of infinity. The result is somewhere in between. This latest chapter won’t win any converts, shifting gears between the ridiculous and the ridiculously fun, but fans will be pleased. As Kurt Russell declares: “Rule No. 1: Know your audience.”
This time, street racer Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) is happily on his honeymoon with his bride Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) in Havana, Cuba. That is until a hacker terrorist named Cipher (Charlize Theron) blackmails him to go rouge against his family, friends and teammates, who are concerned for their pal.
As a result, Mr. Nobody (Russell) rounds up the team — Hobbs (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson), Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej Parker (Ludacris) and Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) — as well as some outside help from former foes in the bash brothers Deckard (Jason Statham) and Owen Shaw (Luke Evans).
The plot of internal squabbling mirrors a rumored off-screen feud between Diesel vs. The Rock, which pundits have hyped as if it were a WrestleMania cage match. The rumors of animosity began when The Rock laid the smack down on Instagram during the final week of filming back in August:
My male co-stars however are a different story. Some conduct themselves as stand-up men and true professionals, while others don’t. When you watch this movie next April and it seems like I’m not acting in some of these scenes and my blood is legit boiling — you’re right … #ZeroToleranceForCandyA**es
Don’t worry, the bad blood doesn’t hamstring the movie; if anything, it adds authenticity to Dom’s betrayal. Both action stars get memorable moments. Diesel, who’s always had the perfect name for a car franchise, is introduced in almost mythic status by taking the moral high road, while The Rock makes a hilarious “everyman” entrance by coaching his daughter at soccer practice. Best of all: He grabs Scott Eastwood and (as he said in WWE) “turns that sumb**ch sideways” against a prison wall.
Still, the juiciest feud isn’t the off-screen rivalry between Rock vs. Diesel, it’s the on-screen rivalry between Rock vs. Statham, whose love-hate relationship evolves from macho smack-talk to mutual admiration. Oddly, the script teases a Rock-Statham fist fight that never pays off. The challenge is issued early (a la Rocky vs. Apollo at the end of “Rocky III”), but the post-credits clip never arrives.
It’s one of many missed opportunities in the script, which feeds the antagonist Bond Villain dialogue. How did she become so evil? Why does she want to destroy the world? We never find out. Instead, Cipher delivers outlandish schemes where old characters make unlikely returns, new generations conveniently arrive, and life-or-death situations are undercut by the ability to fake your own demise. One such twist is totally predictable with forced flashbacks to explain the “gotcha” to the audience.
Underlying it all is a lack of continuity to the character arcs. If you really want to see how nonsensical the plot has become, consider the fate of Han Seoul-Oh in the previous installment. Why is the group happily working with Han’s killer Deckard Shaw? There is zero mention of poor Han in “The Fate of the Furious,” because they want us to forget him so that we can laugh at Deckard’s latest comic relief.
But let’s be real. No one goes to these flicks for the plot mechanics; we go for the over-the-top action. Here, director F. Gary Gray (“Straight Outta Compton”) is up to the task, pausing the quick-cut action with slow-motion visuals and effective sound design to highlight certain high-impact collisions.
The opening street race in Cuba is wonderful, as Gray uses a low-angle camera to push in on The Sexy Race Starter (yes, that’s her name in the credits) in a manner that recalls Natalie Wood waving at the starting line during the “chickie run” scene in “Rebel Without a Cause” (1955). The race is so thrilling and the aftermath so effective that it could be used as a time capsule to prove this franchise’s appeal.
Likewise, our first action encounter with the rest of the Fast & Furious team is sheer popcorn gold, as a giant wrecking ball demolishes their enemies in one direction, then swings back to punish the rest.
Conversely, the ensuing prison break doesn’t work at all. Fists fly, boots land and skulls crack as the violent prisoners bust loose, but it’s all presented in a fast-motion speed that feels far too staged.
From here, the biggest action set piece features a flurry of “self-driving cars” that are hacked by Cipher to divebomb out of Manhattan parking garages onto helpless NYPD vehicles. The timely tech concept is a stroke of genius in the brainstorming room — the equivalent of the cars parachuting out of airplanes last time around — but the presentation looks fake with CGI cars zooming in unison.
It all builds to a Russian submarine climax that’s so blatantly over-the-top that you’ll either deem it ridiculous or ridiculously awesome, depending on your suspension of disbelief. You’ve heard of jumping the shark? If this franchise goes off the rails, folks will point to “jumping the submarine.”
In the face of such unrealistic silliness, the movie is at its best in the moments that it embraces its absurdity for comedy. Tyrese lands some laugh-out-loud lines about being No. 11 on the Most Wanted List (he really wants into the Top 10); The Rock delivers some killer smack-talk about a toothbrush; and one hero orchestrates a hilarious baby carriage scene like “Raising Arizona.”
It’s these lovable people — not the plot — that keep fans coming back for more, which is why the series has logged more installments than “Rocky” and tied “Star Wars” at eight films and counting. In 2015, “Furious 7” became one of the fastest movies ever to gross $1 billion worldwide. Expect “Fate of the Furious” to do the same at the box office, leaving the door open for at least two more follow-ups.
Advice going forward: Cut down the run-time. “F8” runs about 40 minutes too long. Action-comedies are always pushing it after 90-100 minutes, but this ride lasts a bloated 136 minutes. Surely, the filmmakers want to give fans their money’s worth, but too many crashes can cause a serious pileup.
Which brings us back to Rule No. 1: “Know your audience.” The producers have dialed into what fans want from the action, but they could simultaneously wow the critics if they showed more discipline. Perhaps more revealing then is Rule No. 3: “Rules don’t apply.” That sentiment reigns supreme, for better and for worse, burning plenty of rubber and emerging with just enough tread still on the tires.
