The Fate of the Furious
Whilst on his honeymoon, walking meatbag and auto wizard Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) is brought to the dark side by cyber terrorist and hacker extraordinaire, Cipher (Charlize Theron), who’s in possession of the ultimate McGuffin. Turned against his family and crew, it’s Dom against the world. Will Deckard, Hobbs, Letty, Roman, Tej, and Ramsey (Jason Statham, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez,Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Nathalie Emmanuel) be able to stop the powers in play, or will it all be too fast and too furious….8?
Directed by F. Gary Gray and written by Chris Morgan and Gary Scott Thompson, this humanized action cartoon of biblical proportions falls in perfect lockstep with its predecessors. Horrible dialogue, impossible setups and solutions, fancy fast cars, really big explosions, and of course….family; check the box it’s all here, just as big and ridiculous as ever. Sure, one could fault this film and its entire franchise with taunts and claims that “this isn’t high cinema” or “this perpetuates horrible standards and stereotypes,” etc., this would all be missing the point, and while both of the above statements are true, at its core, this film is action/escapism at its most basic; it’s a Summertime popcorn chomping action flick that delivers the goods in Spring to clear the way for all of the explosions that have yet to come. Try not to read too far into this one and you’ll be a lot more satisfied. And, pro-tip, every time someone in the film says a line of dialogue that contains the word “family,” take a drink, your bar tab for drinks after the show will be exceedingly low courtesy of the in theatre pre-funk action at its finest, you’re welcome. Really a matinee but deservedly begging to be seen on the big screen, The Fate of the Furious is rated PG-13.