The Fate of the Furious (2017)

The Fate of the Furious (2017)

IMDB Rating : 7.5/10 (as on 12.04.2017)

PG-13 | 2h 16min | Action, Crime, Thriller

When a mysterious woman seduces Dom into the world of terrorism and a betrayal of those closest to him, the crew face trials that will test them as never before.

Director: F. Gary Gray

Writers: Chris Morgan, Gary Scott Thompson

Stars: Vin Diesel, Jason Statham, Dwayne Johnson

IMDB link Here

Movie rating ★★★☆☆  

Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson ensure franchise still has va-va-vroom

The resurgence of Fast and the Furious from straight-to-DVD-destined three-wheeler to multiplex monolith has been one of the more unlikely cinematic successes of recent years. This was a franchise that, with 2006’s endlessly lampooned Tokyo Drift, looked less in need of a tune up than to be scavenged for parts and left up on bricks. Five instalments later and it’s as close to a bankable vehicle as it gets in Hollywood.

Of course, cynical sorts might suggest that the untimely death of Paul Walker midway through filming of Fast and Furious 7 gave the series a sympathetic second-look from audiences that might have otherwise abandoned it. That though would underplay the strangely appealing alchemy of the franchise in the past several instalments, which has seen it evolve from a gruff drag race B-movie to something far more universal: a turbocharged mix of cars, quips and explosions, with just the merest hint of sentimentality to keep the date-movie crowd sweet.

For The Fate of the Furious – variously referred to as Fast & Furious 8, Fast 8 or, for those really pressed for time, F8 – another bolt-on has been attached to its action-film chassis, that of the high-stakes cyberthriller. It’s an incongruous addition, and one that frequently seems in danger of lurching into techno-jargon incomprehensibility; but things race along at such a ferocious lick you scarcely have time to question the moments of incongruity (chiefly, how can so many supercars be also somehow explosion-retardant).

Of course these brief flourishes of character acting are merely aperitifs to F8’s main course: to batter you into submission with pyrotechnic set pieces. There are three here, of which one – a confusingly edited sequence on the Siberian wastes – falls somewhat flat. Better is an opening sequence in which Diesel races a supercar with a nitrous-oxide-fuelled old banger, which should appeal to anyone who enjoyed the franchise in its early, motor-obsessed iterations. And, in the film’s central set piece, Cipher hacks into seemingly every car in New York City and points them in the direction of a motorcade protecting the Russian defence minister. There’s a convincing thriller to be made about our technophobia around the self-driving-car revolution. Make no mistake, F8 isn’t it; but it’s still an effective – and spectacular – scene.

Ultimately, you suspect that the future of the series rests on its ability to find new ways of making cars bash into each other feel somehow novel. For now it’s managing to do that – and the series’ broadening of its action palette is a sensible way of keeping things fresh. But what kept the franchise afloat during those lean times was its melodrama-soaked character moments and, bar some extended relationship turmoil between Dom and Letty, and a couple of nice nods to the late Walker, they’re relatively thin on the ground. Instead this is a big dumb action movie in its purest, most honourable sense: fast, furious and frequently fun.

Read full review at The Guardian

Movie rating ★★★☆☆ 

Bigger doesn't always equal better in Fast and Furious 8

There's an interaction in Fast & Furious 8 (known in the US as The Fate of the Furious) between franchise latecomers Luke Hobbs (Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson) and Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) that sums things up nicely: the two are thrust together, insults are hurled back and forth, one of which involves punching teeth, a toothbrush and a place where the sun don't shine. The two maintain a steely composure for about four seconds before their faces contort in laughter. Not even they can suppress it anymore.

Perhaps this is the first warning sign that, with Fast & Furious 8, the franchise is squarely in on the joke. However, instead of opening the floodgates for a helping of self-deprecating comedy, the final product feels more like a replication as opposed to something existing on its own merit - a scandalous notion considering this film truly has it all (and then some): family drama, cyber-terrorism, prison riots and a dreadlocked Charlize Theron.

It's almost staggering to comprehend that this is the eighth Fast & Furious film, not least because it seemed like the franchise was chugging to a close when Universal dropped the entire cast for the Japan-set spin-off Tokyo Drift in 2006 - and yet its episodic nature, well-managed ensemble and increasing ridiculousness made this an easy film series to enjoy.

A third of the way through Fast & Furious 8, it hits you: it may have reached its limit. While this outing is often an enjoyable, pulse-quickening spectacle that should be seen on the biggest screen you can find, the franchise's peak - fifth entry Fast Five - just won't be bettered. For the first time, this film's existence smacks of obligation as opposed to necessity (an issue when considering this is the start of a new trilogy).

Read full review at  The independent

A Disappointing Sequel, A Franchise Stuck In Neutral

At a glance, we're probably looking at a performance not unlike Paramount's last Transformers film. Age of Extinction went from $353 million domestic in 2011 for Dark of the Moon to $245m domestic, yet it earned over $300m in China and eventually topped the $1 billion mark to become 2014's biggest grossing movie. We can do the math and comparisons once we get numbers, but one milestone I think will go down is Furious 7's "mere" $15m Thursday preview figure. We can expect a bigger Thursday even if the weekend will likely be more frontloaded.

For much of its running time, Fate of the Furious goes against what has made the franchise so enjoyable of late. The plot, with Dom being forced to go rogue and work for the side of villainy, keeps the core cast separate from each other for most of the film and keeps most of them in a state of misery and gloom. This eighth installment must depend on the relative chemistry of its dwindling ensemble. The picture cannot escape its arbitrary nature, existing as the first episode since the third with no real reason to exist.

First, most of the action scenes are either the good guys losing/bad guys winning or scenes with unmentioned collateral damage caused by the heroes. As a result, for much of the film, we’re rooting against action. There is a first act sequence where our heroes send giant wrecking balls smashing into police cars with no regard for life-and-limb. There is a big prison break sequence where a hero and a villain bust out together. But this isn’t the high moral melodrama of John Woo’s Face/Off, and you’re not supposed to think about all the correctional officers who are surely being killed.

You’re certainly meant to turn your brain off for the second-act set piece, a scene involving remotely controlled cars that would cause a worldwide panic and cripple the economy. The scene is careful not to imply collateral damage since Dom can’t have innocent blood on his hands. Yet, one cannot ignore that Cipher’s plan is an incredibly complicated and high-profile way to go about what is supposed to be an under-the-radar operation and would completely change the fabric of public transportation.

Is it entertaining? Sure. Is it consistent with the last film? Absolutely not. And for a franchise that prizes itself for an almost Saw-like devotion to continiuty, it's a little odd how much this one requires you to either forget what you know or ignore the inherant drama of what came before.

Things finally get back into shape for the third act, with an extended multi-pronged action sequence that delivers what you arguably came for in the first place. The action finale, while relatively conventional, is enjoyable and gives the team members plenty to do. I will carp with a musical choice in an airplane-set shoot-out, as (again no spoilers) the film sets up a potential for a violent gun battle set to goofy music only to go with standard action movie melodies.

My above nitpicking notwithstanding, the film ends well. Oh, and not that I doubted him (Set It Off is an underappreciated action drama and The Italian Job has a great final chase scene), but F. Gary Gray acquits himself well enough to the mega-budget franchise sandbox. My issues with the film are mostly in terms of writing and plot structure.

History may show that the Fast and the Furious franchise was a mostly middling action series that was briefly elevated by the inexplicably fantastic fifth entry and the context-related poignancy of its seventh chapter. Fast Five was the culmination of everything that came before, with an emotionally engaging action caper that felt like the end of the line. It was the Empire Strikes Back of the franchise, and we may have to accept that it was a fluke.

Or, if I may end this on a note of optimism, the Fast and Furious franchise may just be the opposite of Star Trek where the odd-numbered installments are generally better than the even-numbered ones. If this is the start to a final trilogy, then I’m curious to see where this goes. To its credit, this is a stand-alone adventure. I didn’t care for the first four films yet fell hard for Fast Five. That may have been a one-time thing, but, to quote another ongoing cinematic story, I’m with Fast and the Furious till the end of the line.

Read full review at Forbes

After his surprisingly fun remake of The Italian Job in 2003, whose most memorable sequence revolved around a scene-stealing Mini Cooper, F. Gary Gray would seem to have been a no-brainer to direct a Fast and Furious installment — especially once Vin Diesel and his thrill-seeking clan segued from mere street racing to heists and other forms of high-speed mayhem.

But careers make left turns (in this case, a misfiring sequel to Get Shorty), and it took the success of Straight Outta Compton to get Gray in, well, the driver's seat of this eighth installment of the stupendously successful cars-and-guns action franchise. The result isn't as big a gear-shift as some fans expected in the wake of original castmember Paul Walker's death. In fact, it recycles plot-twisting devices from earlier chapters and keeps action firmly in the street-hoods-save-the-world neighborhood entered a couple of years ago. Fate delivers exactly what fans have come to expect, for better and for worse, and it would be a shock to see it disappoint producers at the box office.

After being forced to rejigger the last picture mid-production when Walker died, the filmmakers let him rest in peace here. His character is mentioned only twice: once, in a line that cements his retirement to idyllic family life, and later, in a predictable sentimental touch suggesting he'll always be part of the gang in spirit.

With due respect to the actor, who is clearly missed by his colleagues in real life, it isn't as if the Furious franchise is hurting for dramatis personae: When Dwayne Johnson came aboard in the fifth film, things started to feel crowded. Then came Jason Statham, then Kurt Russell, and now we have a villain played by Gray's Italian Job star Charlize Theron. Somebody get Bruce Willis on the horn, and we'll have ourselves a proper movie for Episode 9.

There are no stunts here to top, or even to approach, the last film's skyscraper-to-skyscraper jumps, and it must be said that some feats — like driving a car up the ramp of an aircraft that hasn't bothered to land first — have come to feel rote. So let's focus on moments of pleasure: chief among them, a long scene in which Hobbs escapes from prison (don't ask) alongside his mortal enemy Deckard Shaw (Statham), the former Hulking out against guards and inmates alike while the latter practices his parkour. Or the few small moments early on when Tyrese Gibson gets to tweak his too-serious castmates with a throwaway quip. "What this series needs is more Tyrese," you might say to yourself during the pic's middle hour or so. But then you see the actor being pulled around a frozen Russian lake, screaming in panic as he clings to the ripped-off door of an orange Lamborghini, and you say, "This was not what I meant by 'more Tyrese.'"

For a long time, it seems that the movie's wittiest moment will be a blink-and-miss-it gag involving a car's rear-view camera warning system. Then, toward the end, comes an extended sequence involving (no spoilers here) extreme violence, a wholly innocent bystander, an unexpectedly considerate brute and ear-protection devices. For a few minutes, Fate of the Furious might be funny even for someone who has never cracked a smile at one of Diesel's self-satisfied line readings. It seems unwise to count on more such moments in future installments. But in a franchise whose increasingly ridiculous action set pieces beg variations on the cliche "jump the shark," a detour into undisguised action comedy might be fruitful.

Read full review at Hollywood reporter

Movie rating ★★★☆☆ 

'Too much clutter and no sense of peril'

Since its slate-wiping fourth instalment in 2009, the Fast & Furious films have been the place to go for quick-cut, shakily-shot, CGI-smothered cartoon excess that just happens to involve cars of some sort – and they’re invariably propelled across the finish line, if and when they are, by their outsize sense of fun and likeable ensemble cast. The fact the franchise hadn’t produced a single comprehensibly shot and edited car chase in the last eight years was by-the-by – or at least it was, until Mad Max: Fury Road (and others, not least of all the John Wick films) reminded us just how exhilarating this stuff can be when done right.

Hence, perhaps, the sheepish-feeling tribute to George Miller’s film with which Fast & Furious 8 rounds things up. It’s like watching the child with the biggest mouth in school suddenly realise he has to walk the walk – and managing, just about, though in a way that makes it slightly harder to look him in the eye afterwards. Director F. Gary Gray (Straight Outta Compton, the 2003 remake of The Italian Job) commits the sequence to a Fury Road level of spectacle, and has some uproarious ideas up his sleeve, probably better discovered in the heat of the cinematic moment than in the third paragraph of a middling review. 

But its craftsmanship doesn’t step up to the challenge: speed and distance are often poorly expressed, while rhythmically it lollops where Miller’s film surges. See also the could-have-been-ingenious scene halfway through the film in which the vehicles of New York City turn sentient, Herbie-style (it’s to do with the microchips) then chase the Russian ambassador and his nuclear launch codes around Manhattan. The idea itself is crunchy-fresh, and its implicit suspicion of driverless cars feels deeply on-brand. But there’s something musty in the execution – too much visual clutter, no real sense of peril, and computer graphics that don’t quite square with the surroundings. It’s an odd sensation to watch a Fast & Furious film and find yourself wishing the special effects lived up to the writing, but – well, here we are.

Helen Mirren has a larky cameo as Deckard’s mother – think Eastenders’ Peggy Mitchell with extra vinegar – and is somehow better served than poor Charlize Theron, whose flaxen-haired super-hacker Cipher spends her scenes waxing gnomic on the subject of fate, peering at Toretto, and generally doing anything but drive or hack. The team’s tech pixie Ramsey (an underused Nathalie Emmanuel) contrasts Cipher unfavourably to the cyber-activist group Anonymous, but anonymous is exactly what she is: her scheme could potentially end all life on Earth, but it’s treated with no more urgency than any of the series’ other heists with personal stakes attached.

Theron’s Imperator Furiosa was the blackened, aching soul of Fury Road. In Fast & Furious 8, she's hissing orders at underlings and growling lines like “It’s zombie time.” It isn’t – not quite – but one sympathises.

 Read full review at Telegraph

Movie rating ★★✬☆☆ 

Charlize Theron's Cipher a remote-control villain in overloaded sequel

Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) must pinch himself when he ponders how his life has turned out. In the original The Fast and the Furious, he was an ex-con managing a modest garage in Los Angeles and competing in street races after dark. Seven sequels later, he heads a globetrotting team of crime fighters who use their flair behind the wheel to foil schemes for world domination.

Like all the later instalments, The Fate of the Furious is overloaded with subplots and secondary characters (I haven't mentioned Jason Statham as a reformed hitman, or Helen Mirren as his Cockney mother). Theron gets as much screen time as anybody, but after her spectacular work in Mad Max: Fury Road, it's disappointing that Cypher prefers manipulating events from afar to getting down and dirty in the midst of the action.

Another newcomer to the series is director F. Gary Gray, who functions strictly as a gun for hire. His widescreen images have a commercial gloss, but seldom the graphic precision needed to turn action into pop art – though there's a potent, almost nightmarish scene where Cypher's team use their hacking know-how to crash cars together like remote-control toys.

Despite such flourishes, the series becomes more cosy with each instalment. We know that disputes within the team will be resolved in time for a final communal celebration, all but negating the original premise of thrillseekers leading reckless lives in proximity to death. Under such circumstances, the chases and battles can be little more than harmless, weightless fun: when a henchman plummets to a grisly fate off-screen, only a few discreet specks of blood fly into view, while Johnson glances down and murmurs "nasty".

Read full review at Sydney Morning Herald