The Reverend Watches … The Fate Of The Furious
Who doesn’t like the Fast & The Furious film series? Wrong people, that’s who! Its a selection of films that doesn’t take itself too seriously and as such can be watched in a state of dis-belief while never really caring about the physics involved (or the number of gear changes!). I had a bit of spare time recently so I treated myself to the latest installment – The Fate of the Furious.
Summary
Dom Toretto is relaxing in Cuba when he is approached by someone who convinces him to do ‘another job’. It is blackmail, pure and simple, but what makes this different to the other films is that he isn’t allowed to let his crew know and it involves double crossing them!
The film is fast paced, as you’d expect, and we jump from Cuba to Berlin to New York to Russia and then back to New York. We are able to put a name to a face from a previous installment (Cipher) and also see a guy from Game of Thrones (still with beard!). He is the 2nd GoT actor in this as Missandre also returns as part of Dom’s team.
As the team try to work out why Dom has double crossed them, we find Luke Hobbs arrested and thrown in prison alongside the main baddie from the last film – Deckard Shaw. This leads to a great set peice as the two of them escape from prison and meet up with Nobody (who had offered earlier to allow them to escape at any time).
Dom’s next job is to steal a ‘nuclear football’ and here we see another great act in the movie where Cipher and her team hijack a load of self-drive/electric cars and use them to help Dom get the suitcase. Its great to imagine that this could happen and the sheer volume of cars controlled to finish this scene is massive and it makes for a ‘Blues Brothers’ level of car destruction – although I think for Fate of the Furious they are all CGI rather than actual cars.
The film then moves onto the final act set in Russia. Here we find Cipher trying to hijack a nuclear submarine. Why not? This is the eighth installment in a film series that has always fallen far over the line of believably. There is then a race between Dom, his team and a submarine. It ends with a heat-seeking missile and Dom, outside of his car, being protected by his crew. Does he survive? Oh course he does, this is from the Fast & The Furious series! Oh, and there is a great fight scene with Deckard holding the baby (literally) while he tries to bring down Cipher, who escapes in the end with a parachute.
The movie ends with everyone (except Cipher) sharing a drink on a rooftop. Dom & Deckard make up and there is another discussion about family….including the new baby. Echoing real life, this baby is called Brian after Dom’s brother-in-law.
Reverend Reviews
Over-the-top! Ridiculous! Unbelievable! – All phrases that everyone must agree are attached to this film.
Enjoyable! Massive! Cars! Also phrases associated to this film.
If you are happy suspending disbelief then you’ll love this film. It has car chases, it has explosions and when was the last time you watched a car film that included a submarine? The set pieces are well structured and although the acting is perhaps not the greatest, they continue to get big names involved. The cast list keeps growing and I expect there to be Fast & Furious vs The Expendables cross-over based on the subject matters and the stars involved.
Who is in it?
Dom Toretto played by Vin Diesel
Luke Hobbs played by Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson
Deckard Shaw played by Jason Statham
Cipher played by Charlize Theron
Mr. Nobody played by Kurt Russell
And loads of others…..
How?
I watched this on the plane recently. The screen was probably a little small to really appreciate the massiveness of the film but I don’t think it ruined the experience.
Buy The Fate of the Furious
Stream It
Buy it digitally at Amazon
But it digitally at Itunes
Cost
It didn’t cost me anything to watch it (if you don’t include the cost of the flight!)