The Fate of the Furious Movie Review

After the last couple of films in the franchise of “Fast and Furious” have raised the stakes up so high, where else can the movie series go? It can go into Oscar territory. With new characters played by Charlize Theron and Helen Mirren, there are actually Oscar winning performers in this movie “The Fate of the Furious”. That does not mean that anyone will win an award for this one, except perhaps for “Most Extensive Use of Stunt Performers”… 

Given the death of actor Paul Walker, the franchise did need a new direction. So, they took a cue from Bond and Bourne movies, and added the elements of exotic locations and secret missions. Add all that to a mixture of crazy stunts and outlandish set pieces, the level of excitement gets revved up even higher than the engine speeds. Plus adding all the people that you have come to know and love back again makes for a familiar setting.

Dom (Vin Diesel) and his wife Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) are in Havana for a honeymoon. Dom is recruited by a master criminal and cyberterrorist named Cipher (Charlize Theron). She has a chokehold and Dom and will use him to betray his crew. Agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) gets a new assignment, and connects Dom & Letty with the others required for a job in Germany. They get the rest back together: Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Chris Bridges) and Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel). Dom double-crosses everyone and takes off with the McGuffin device.

Agent Hobbs gets caught and thrown into the same prison that holds Deckard (Jason Statham), who is the evil bad guy from the last movie. Spooky agent Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) and his younger assistant Nobody Jr. (Scott Eastwood) break up a jail break caused the Hobbs and Deckard. They are both brought in with Dom’s crew to locate the missing McGuffin device, which will lead back to Dom and Cipher. Cipher is all talk when explaining to Dom that he has a choice to continue working for her. But she holds a dark secret from Dom’s past, and keeps a tight grip on Dom. Dom’s group also gets a little help from Deckard’s mother – Magdalene Shaw (Helen Mirren) in not much more than a cameo.

In New York City, Cipher goes after the Russian military chief who has something that she wants. When she remotely controls hundreds of vehicles, she can make a rush hour pile-up seem to be nothing more than fender bender. Dom’s crew find him and try to stop him, but the movie must go on to a higher level of crazy extreme action. The baddies with Cipher attack a submarine base in Russian, so she can take over a nuclear sub. Dom’s secret plan involves Deckard and his brother Owen (Lee Evens) – who is a bad guy from a previous movie. The action and the stunts and speed and explosions in this section of the movie is fairly breathtaking. It goes pretty much non-stop, between cars on a frozen sea, followed by a stealth submarine, and goes to a distant plane, where Deckard and Owen are stopping Cipher.

It always gets Faster, and it always gets more Furious, and there is no limit to the movies Over-The-Topness. But, danged, it sure does work! It becomes like a movie version of a roller coaster ride that spins and twirls and goes in any direction that it wants to go. But you have so much fun watching it that you don’t notice that the whole idea is ludicrous. Just for some extra added fun, there is a brief cameo with Tego (Tego Calderón) and Rico (Don Omar), who show up from the movie set in Brazil.

There is no way to critique a blockbuster such as “The Fate of the Furious”, or comment on the acting or the story line. This movie lives in its own world and its universe does not answer to Earth’s petty rules. It is up there with the stratosphere and the box office results will probably follow up in the same direction. Enjoy! I know you will see it, sooner or later…