Fast & Furious 8: Movie Review


Okay, so this is a tough one. For a bunch of reasons. I've been following this franchise since the beginning, back from when I would re-enact the race scenes of the movies with my HotWheels cars. And one can't help but develop a fondness for the characters that you've been following and watching and enjoying for so many years, and that's what this franchise is now. A collection of characters that I love to watch and be entertained by. And this one is a really difficult for a simple reason. Paul Walker, who played Brian O' Connor, was my favourite character and I didn't think they'd make another 'Fast & Furious' movie since his unfortunate death a couple of years ago. But they did, and I didn't know if I wanted to follow the franchise without him in it. There was no more Han or Giselle either, so this really was only half the 'family'. And I think there are others who felt the same or a similar way as I did. Having watched the latest one however, I'm glad I did.

'Fast & Furious 8: Fate of the Furious' is a fan movie. That's what it is. There are a lot of cool stunts which destroy an excessive number of SUVs (a personal level of satisfaction there), there's a lot of bass heavy music, a lot of engine noises and tyre squeals and some funny moments between Roman (Tyrese Gibson) and Tej (Ludacris). That's all the fun stuff. Then there are the cringe moments, like every scene with Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel).

Hobbs gets some forced and cringeworthy macho lines but Dwayne Johnson makes it bearable with his expressions and physique. Alongside him, we have the return of Jason Statham (Deckard) who, for some reason, has a heavy English accent that's all over the place. I imagine the director looked at Jason and said "Could you say it a bit....MORE British?" So, he gave the lazy American racists the worst one he could. But it's a HUGE franchise so they even had Helen Mirren cameo in it. Luckily for them, there were moments where Deckard wasn't given horrible macho lines while talking to Hobbs and we saw some classic Statham which is fun to watch.

That just leaves the second half of the franchise, main man Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel), who basically plays badass demi-god with heavily modified muscle cars as his heavenly chariot. He is the man who defies all laws of science, and survives just about anything and manages to be a mastermind while also being a muscle head. Yeah. Forget all reasoning and logic and intelligent thought, and he does make for an entertaining character with the glares, deep voice, explosions and gear changes that will tickle your sex drive if you're immature and love cars.

There are a few new characters in the fray, starting with the new villain in Charlize Theron who plays cyber terrorist mastermind called 'Cipher'. Um, bit of a bond villain, ruthless but leaves the heroes alive, and walks around for a lot of the film showing off her cleavage or how fit her butt is or both. Not complaining as such, but they could have written her character a bit more interesting. Kurt Russel is the slick black ops agent Mr. Nobody with almost unlimited resources, and there's Scott Eastwood who (irritatingly) feels like the new O'Connor for the series.

There's also a lot of mayhem using all these 'intelligent' cars with self-drive and a plethora of sensors, getting hacked and being used for city-wide mayhem and destruction. Another personally satisfying stunt sequence, for I am always in favour of good old manuals and minimal computer involvement while driving.

As a movie? I'd rate it like 4 out of 9 packets of lays, but as a fan movie for all who follow the franchise and only want to see our characters do stuff we expect them to do, its a 7 out of 9. 

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