THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS MOVIE
THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS DRIVER

With F9, even with the return of director Justin Lin (Fast 3-6), it feels like the franchise finally crossed that line for me. And yet, I happily accepted those flights of fancy because they kept me entertained ahead of that nagging sense of incredulity that they were able to somehow outrace. In the sixth movie, they faced off against a tank. In the seventh movie, the cars parachuted out of a cargo plane and drove through skyscrapers. That's crazy, but remember The Rock is a superhero among us mere mortals. In the eighth movie, the cars were outracing a nuclear submarine and cracking ice floes and The Rock redirected a torpedo with his biceps. The Fast saga has played with this tenuous tonal demarcation line for over a decade.

THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS MOVIE

It's hard to define but every movie universe has a line of sustainable believability. I acknowledge the inherent absurdity in bemoaning the over-the-top nature of a franchise whose very appeal was its over-the-top nature. It doesn't matter, and the question remains what even matters any longer for a franchise defined by its brain-melting excess? It's a soap opera with spy missions. Now Diesel is 54, every member of his beloved crew/family will never die even after they appear to die, and the filmmakers have decided to introduce a long-lost adult brother played by John Cena, never mind the fact that these two muscle men don't look like they share a single shred of DNA. And I have had to ignore or forgive a lot but until now I have found those set pieces able to clear an increasingly elevating hurdle, the baggage of these characters and trying to make me care even as they become impervious superheroes that have long left the earthbound trappings of a scrappy team of underground street racers lead by Vin Diesel back in 2001. As long as those action set pieces delivered the goods, I was able to forgive much. I watch these movies for their ridiculous stunts and action set pieces that don't just defy the laws of physics but make the ghost of Isaac Newton vomit. I've never been invested in this franchise for the characters (with the exception of The Rock because he is The Rock) or for the stories, and I doubt few others who even consider themselves fans would differ. I'll begin by stating my own apologist stance on the Fast saga. F9 was delayed a year from COVID, a phrase that will be repeated a lot with upcoming fall releases, and after watching the 130-minute sequel, I think the franchise has finally exhausted its general appeal for me. Maybe that will include the soap opera-sounding subtitle, 'As the Wheels Spin.' It's all just a curious way to handle name recognition for a twenty-year blockbuster franchise. Alas, the title is apparently only supposed to be read as F-9, followed by the also soap opera-sounding The Fast Saga subtitle (sorry, 'Furious,' maybe you'll regain credit billing in the tenth movie in 2023). The ninth entry is titled F9, and by the logic of the previous sequel, I would assume that was intended to stand for 'Fff-nine,' or likely 'Fine,' and at this point an implicit admission of the franchise just not even trying to be relatable to any kind of recognizable pattern or order or even coherency. We've had different adjectives favored (Fast Five, Furious 7) and even gone the route of number-related wordplay, like 2018's very soap opera-sounding The Fate of the Furious (spelled F8 in some incarnations).

Has a multi-billion-dollar franchise ever had this much confusion and inconsistency with a name? The Fast and Furious saga, which is what we're now calling it I suppose, began twenty years ago in 2001 and has undergone all sorts of titular irregularity. View the collection: The Fast and the Furious Rating: PG-13 (Language|Action|Sequences of Violence)

THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS DRIVER

His crew joins together to stop a world-shattering plot led by the most skilled assassin and high-performance driver they've ever encountered: a man who also happens to be Dom's forsaken brother, Jakob (John Cena, the upcoming The Suicide Squad). This time, that threat will force Dom to confront the sins of his past if he's going to save those he loves most. Vin Diesel's Dom Toretto is leading a quiet life off the grid with Letty and his son, little Brian, but they know that danger always lurks just over their peaceful horizon.

The fate of the furious