The Fate of the Furious

RATING: C+

It's hard to believe this franchise has gotten as far it has. They didn't even start becoming "good" until the fifth one, and even then they still had issues. The increasing ludicrousness of the plots and impossible stunts eventually caught up with them a little in the last movie, so I had to wonder if the franchise had run out of what little gas it had to begin with. The title of this one certainly didn't help much. "The Fate of the Furious." Fate. F8. Get it? Ha. Ha. 

This particular plot centers around the idea "What if Dominic Toretto, the guy who preaches 'family' so much, turned his back on them?" That was what the trailer gave us. The problem in the actual movie is that the big twist as to why he does it is telegraphed almost *immediately* after he meets Cipher, our new villain. And then about 20-25 minutes later, they just flat out give up on trying to hide it and just give the reveal anyway. (Despite the predictability, I have to give some props at some point for Vin Diesel's acting through all of this--he actually does *really* good in this movie.) 

With that said, the plot and storyline of this movie still in general makes more sense than Furious 7. That one advertised Jason Statham as the bad guy, but then they threw in Djimon Hounsou as well and created a rather convoluted plot that was lost amidst sloppy direction and writing, and stunts and impossible survivals that were ridiculous even by this franchise's standards. This one at least feels a little more simple. Or at least simple in that it's kind of familiar. Because what the bad guy (or girl in this case) wants is nuclear launch codes to gain access to nuclear missiles. Simple enough, right? And even the "blackmailing Dom" plot that happens here isn't completely unheard of. Sure, there's a bit of technological nonsense along the way, but don't tell me you weren't expecting that by this point in these movies. Cipher herself is kind of annoying though, due to her constant ridiculous monologues on things like fate and choice.

The good news is that director James Wan is gone. No more ridiculous circling camera movements when characters are fighting. And the writing's better too--not great or anything, but it certainly feels less amateur. And, believe it or not, suspension of disbelief isn't as big of a problem here as it was in the last movie--maybe even the sixth one. We have two main big action set pieces--one in New York where Cipher is able to hack a *ton* of cars remotely to create a "zombie" car chase of sorts. It's actually pretty awesome. And the final set piece on the icy tundra is quite good too, and not that unbelievable--at least not until the submarine shows up and then the film reverts to the usual F&F "impossible things" antics for a few minutes. But there's nothing here that's as ridiculous as driving a car off a parking garage ramp, actually hitting a helicopter with it, falling multiple stories in said car and still surviving. 

Now we get to an interesting point of contention--Deckard Shaw's return. Due to having his own vendetta against Cipher, he actually kind of *teams up* with the heroes.  I won't say too much even though you might be able to predict how it goes from there, but they try to make him a bit more sympathetic. Which is difficult, given his actions in the last movie. And yet they somehow actually kind of pull it off--even though I'm also left confused as to how the rest of the team is able to work with him without constantly scowling. 

But what we do get out of that is the glorious continuation of the rivalry between The Rock's and Jason Statham's characters. It was cut short last time when Hobbs got injured early in the movie, but this time we actually watch their "frenemy-ship" build. Which ranges from the prison break scene where the two of them beat the crap out of other prisoners and cops (the most fun part of the movie) or the hilarious jargon they trade. It's enough to make me actually kind of interested in the newly announced spin-off featuring the two. 

At the end of the day, The Fate of the Furious does what I did not expect--improve on the previous movie and actually makes the franchise kind of fun again. There's still problems, of course, but you wouldn't expect anything less. The series has gone back to embracing its spectacle without going too over-the-top. I don't know if they'll be able to keep it up--especially if they ever go to space, since that's actually apparently a small possibility--but they've still given us at least one more fun popcorn action movie out of this long-winded series to watch. This movie doesn't really have much right to be that good, so the fact that it kind of works is a bit of a victory in of itself.