Review of The Fate of the Furious (2017) by Kaptenvideo — 15 Apr 2017

… Aaaand we’re back in the magical land of Vin Diesel, where the family always come first, the cup is always full, the national sport is grabbing life by the balls, and everybody and everything is at the very height of its powers, or ready to get annihilated.

Thus far promoted mostly as „The Fate of the Furious“, there’s actually nothing ultimate or definitive about this eighth installment of loved larger-than-life action series.

Just business as usual although there's nothing wrong with having some of the "good old" if it comes in such a spectacular package.

Part 8 doesn’t disappoint here. There’s a lot of beauty on show – may it come in the form of people, cars, locales or physical laws defying action.

Most of the setpieces are so cool that you just have to wonder at the amount of work all this must have required, done digitally or in real life – from the starting race in Cuba to the prison riot to the zombie car army to attacking the Arctic military base, or pretty much everything in-between.

The Arctic part itself is so huge that it should have been saved for another movie, perhaps „FF9“. In current form it’s like a last dish in the end of the big feast: one could enjoy it more if the belly was not so full already. Also, it could benefit from having more breathing room. The events are so cramped together and the heroes get already comically lucky here, that it loses some of desired impact.

In the competence porn subgenre, "FF" is still one of the big ones, alongside "Mission: Impossible" and James Bond. I wouldn’t call the new one also the new king but it’s good enough to satisfy the hunger for another slice of truly over the top action that Vin Diesel seems to have dedicated his career to. Not to forget, he appeared in another episode of „xXx“ earlier this year also.

The cast is cool as always. We have:

* most of the main crew (Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Dwayne Johnson, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris),.

* expected side crew (Kurt Russell, Jason Statham, Luke Evans, Nathalie Emmanuel).

* and some promising fresh faces (Charlize Theron as the main baddie, Helen Mirren, also Celestino Cornielle and Kristofer Hivju in small but very intriguing parts). I hope some of the new ones figure heavily in future sequel(s) because they have not enough room to shine here.

We have also Scott „son of Clint“ Eastwood who’s bit of surprising addition, lacking the screen charm or physicality of every other star here. I hope they are not considering making him a regular.

Speaking of the future, I would be excited to see the "FF" series seriously considering the hard mission that it has usually avoided so far, part 7 maybe excluded.

Namely, the original movie is not just about grabbing life by the balls, or beautiful girls and cars. It’s about staying true to family and building better life for them. It exhibits a strong sense of place and community; a world which is attractive already by itself, where the audience would like to stay in – not that often seen in movies, action or otherwise.

I secretly believe that this hidden depth is a part of the reason the first „FF“ was able to birth this mega franchise we still get to enjoy all these years later. And this is where the series should head back to.

Because let’s be honest, the action can’t get much more spectacular and over-the-top than we’ve seen so far – without doing Bollywood, at least. And the movies about having heart could actually do with having a bit more depth and heart.

Two sequels have already been promised, in April 2019 and April 2021 respectively, and I am sure they will find ways to outshine (at least some of the) massive action setpieces seen so far. They always do, although it always seems kind of impossible having just finished watching the latest. But seriously, how about going back to the roots?

The title abbreviation „FF8“ reminds me of the function key F8, commonly used in desktop computers to access Windows Safe Mode. Playing it safe is exactly the movie’s only downfall.

The real drama is promised but ultimately missing, although the promise is great, with the central hero getting caught up with some demons and Diesel proving he has enough acting chops to play it out convincingly.