Review: The Fate of the Furious

BY KYLE NELSON

“The Fate of the Furious” is the eighth movie in the Fast/Furious saga, and to be honest, it was the worst one yet.

Aside from the lack of a substantial plot, non-idiotic dialogue and decent acting, the movie was not all bad.

The camera angles were actually impressive with the use of many wide angle shots with addition to fast moving camera work which left me thoroughly impressed, but it was nothing we haven’t seen before from the franchise. Modern day film critics award films which push boundaries and do things that have never been seen before. It seems as though the directors and screenplay team on the “Fate of the Furious” set really dropped the ball on this one.

Looking at how the movies have evolved, it is an evident regression. The original Fast and the Furious movie took place in urban California, where a cop takes his skills and unintentionally hops into the world of street racing. That was interesting, thought provoking and most importantly, it made relative sense. In “Fate of the Furious,” the writers seemed to take a more sci-fi approach, as many things included in the movie made relatively no sense. It seems as though throughout the years the franchise has ditched the necessities of clarity in script writing and replaced them with bottomless action sequences and flimsy fight scenes, which we all love, but need to be subsidized with a solid storyline.

If viewers don’t get caught up in the logistics of the movie, it was great. But after about 10 minutes in and The Rock begins acting as the character of Hobbs it gets a little fuzzy. Hobbs is a cop? Ex-cop? Still not really sure.

But anyway, the movie begins to fizzle when Hobbs is asked to go on a mission to steal back some type of weapon by an anonymous character. And when I say anonymous, I literally mean his name is Mr. Nobody, and you begin to question how this is even possible. While I observed that every middle aged woman in the theatre was intrigued by his impressive physique and ability to practically deadlift an F-150, some, like myself were more interested in how exactly a single dad like Hobbs is able to be detained by the police and still have full custody of his daughter. Throughout the duration I was left with questions.

Spoil alerts won’t be needed, but in the beginning of the movie after the first mission, all of the fast and furious fanboys are going to have their hearts ripped out of their chests. Vin Diesel’s character, Dominic Toretto is forced to betray his crew and ultimately his own morals. If a viewer listened closely, they could hear the sound of a million pre-pubescent “car junkies” begin to bawl their eyes out.

Whether the crew is engaging in inappropriate and slapstick comedic relief or performing the inhuman ability to hack into a government mainframe by pressing 5 buttons on a keyboard, the characters are are sewn together by their incompatible traits. One thing they all have in common though is the need for excessively small, physique enhancing clothing, which are modeled whether the crew is destroying cars and towns in Cuba or blowing up a nuclear missile in the Siberian tundra.

“Fate of the Furious” is the first movie of the franchise since tragic death of Paul Walker in 2013. Walker played a crucial role as Brian O’Conner and for most, the movie was just not the same without him. It felt as though he was the missing piece of the puzzle, without him, the movie felt stagnant. In its entirety, the movie flatlined for the majority of the time and was only awoken by the occasional explosion of something that was evidently not that important.

Overall, the movie had potential but was not executed well. A disclaimer though is that this review was written after having high expectation for the movie and being let down. Basically, “The Fate of the Furious” really just falls short of the bar set by recent Fast and Furious films. If a viewer is looking for a way to pass time, see some intriguing explosions and overall interesting cinematography, the movie is perfect.

Photo courtesy of the Fast and Furious franchise