Flipping cars, explosions, and the comedic tough guy one-liners – whether you roll your eyes or laugh at the absurdity, Fate of the Furious is designed to be as entertaining as it is ridiculous.
Fate of the Furious is an action film directed by F. Gary Gray and is the 8th installment of the Fast franchise. It follows the story of the team facing their leader Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) as he goes rogue for unknown reasons.
With a colorful array of action stars and household names, we expect no more or no less from this installment of the franchise. Vin Diesel takes a more primary role in the series as the same tough leader he always played. Dwayne Johnson appears to be second on the list in terms of screen time but this time he plays as the Captain America of the Furious franchise more than ever before, it seems he is now superhuman (not really); both of these men are certified tough guys and serve as the bread and butter of the film.
While the cast performances have remained more or less the same, we can safely say that Michelle Rodriguez and Nathalie Emmanuel were the weakest performers, showing little range outside of their designated roles; sadly Michelle hasn’t improved since her first appearance. Scott Eastwood (son of Clint Eastwood) offered some notable scenes as an advisor to Kurt Russell. Charlize Theron plays the dreaded villain and has about as much enthusiasm as the last half dozen bad guys.
While it was interesting to see the story take a different approach to the “bad guy” we are ultimately still left with a stale grand villain, despite Charlize Theron’s character describing her plans, we still get a fuzzy idea of her intentions and we mean this in a bad way, as Charlize is a highly talented actress and was severely under-utilized. We felt it was counterproductive revealing Charlize Theron as the grand villain if she was to be as bland as past villains in the series, perhaps introducing her as a new addition to the team, then revealing her as the villain would have left for a much more interesting climax. Despite this, we laughed long at the outrageous action sequences and purposefully cheesy dialogue.
The explosions and visuals for the most part were very good but had some dodgy CGI in a few crazy action scenes. With all this budget, the cinematography was mediocre at best and the editing had more cuts than the budget for the National Park Service. The sets and locations felt genuine and the first act had that classic Fast and Furious vibe to it (half-naked women and drag races). The cars were good as usual and Hairstyling for Charlize was interesting, her character had much more potential, but it seems this would risk alienating the massive audience this franchise currently has. We weren’t offered much in the way of interesting music as we had the standard rap songs and dramatic background humming, it seems they have created a formula that they don’t wish to meddle with.
F. Gary Gray adds an installment to the franchise and while it may not be anything special, it will surely please the fans of the previous entries and earn truckloads of money. In the end, it’s about taking these types of films at face value, it’s dumb fun and will crack a smile or laughing scoff out of most movie-goer’s, it didn’t impress us but it sure made us laugh and smile. Fate of the Furious is an appropriate addition to the Fast franchise.
5.9/10
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