For a few years, my stock of choice looked like it would have worked out. Vin Diesel left after the first one, leaving Paul Walker to carry the franchise in 2003's forgettable 2 Fast 2 Furious. A few years later, both stars were out as the franchise limped towards straight to DVD irrelevancy in The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift. But a funny thing happened on the way to Tokyo. Vin Diesel's character appeared in a cameo at the very end of Drift, breathing fresh air (or is it NOs?) into the franchise. Before you knew it, both stars were back and the franchise hasn't looked back. Sprinkle in a little franchise Viagra (Dwayne Johnson) and you have the series high Fast Five. The Fast franchise has gone to new heights as it has adapted its Ocean's Eleven with cars motif, and with F8, we are looking at the start of a new trilogy that is supposed to bring the franchise to a close (until the inevitable reboot sometime in 2030).
Creatively, I'm a little surprised that they're still going with these movies. The seventh film tied everything up in a nice little bow, while also tastefully dealing with the premature death of Paul Walker. But, alas, there's too much money to be made from these Furious fellas & ladies to put the series to bed.
And here we arrive at The Fate of the Furious. Dom Torretto (Diesel) and Letty (Michele Rodriguez) are on their long overdue honeymoon in Cuba of all places. It's not too long before street races are happening and Dom Torretto is drawn back into the life he thought he left behind by the mysterious Cipher (played by the ageless Charlize Theron and her white lady dreads). From there the team is quickly assembled and they're off on another jet-setting adventure. Only this time, the big surprise is that Dom goes to the dark side and turns on his team. The how and the why are a big part of this film, so I won't ruin it by going any further. The rest of the film plays out just as you'd expect. There are chases and fight sequences. One-liners and explosions. That's not to say that this is a bad film. It's just a little bit too much of "been there, done that" for my liking. The action sequences are still top-notch and the humor and comraderie between the characters is still ever-present. My main problem is that this film felt like the first one that the actors were doing it strictly for the paycheck. Perhaps the luster has started to come off slightly.
I'm giving The Fate of the Furious 2.5 stars out of 4. It's a good, but not great entry into the Furious filmography. If you're a fan, definitely see it. The submarine chase is everything its advertised to be and more. Too bad I didn't invest my money way back in 2001... For now, I'll go listen to my Limp Bizkit CD and think about what could have been...
