Fast & Furious 9 crashes and burns
22.7.2021
Translation: Veronica Bielawski
As a fan of the Fast & Furious series, it’s hard for me to say this: «Fast & Furious 9» is a damp squib. Unfortunately.
Heads up: this movie review has slight spoilers – as in those things that give away the plot. Not the things you find on the back of cars. Okay, it has those, too. But that’s not nearly as bad.
The fact is you’re unlikely to watch the ninth film in a series without having seen the other eight – or nine, if you count «Hobbs and Shaw». But in case you haven’t done so, sit yourself down in front of the screen and indulge yourself. I’ve been a fan of the series since the very first movie, and no matter how dorky the series gets, I’m sticking with it.
«Fast & Furious 9» isn’t a good movie. Mind you, no one expected it to be. But even in the context of just the «Fast Saga», it’s no show stealer. Here’s my review of a movie so bewildering that I watched it twice in the cinema.
Some words of wisdom:
- If you’re not a fan of the series: let it be. No need to watch it.
- If you are a fan of the series: watch the movie twice. The streaming release is good enough.
Or just read this review. That works, too.
The story: fast-paced, absurd, self-consistent
I watched «Fast & Furious 9» on Wednesday. Then I watched it again on Saturday at the Pathé Spreitenbach bed cinema. Pleasant side effect: I never want to watch a movie in a normal movie theatre ever again. Bed cinema for the win! No contest. The extra bit of space, the blanket and the sheer comfort turn the movies into a fancy experience.
It’s only after watching the movie a second time that I realise it actually explains all the inexplicable things I had deemed to be plot holes. Namely:
- Michael Stasiak (Shea Whigham) says he flies the crew, including equipment, everywhere, but is out after that.
- The electromagnet at the bottom of the aircraft is stronger than any electromagnet known thus far.
- Based on the flashbacks we see, the Toretto family consists of Dom, «other son» and «Huh? Daughter? What daughter?»
This is not to say that it fixes all the plot holes. The story is still completely hare-brained, even for a Fast & Furious movie – and this is coming from a fan of the series. The story goes like this: the son of a dictator and the long lost and disgraced brother of the one and only Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) team up and hatch a plan. If they can get their hands on a computer thingy – which shall simply be referred to as MacGuffin – they can hack anything. As in literally anything that has a computer chip built in. This includes satellite weapons.
A physical half of the MacGuffin is in Mr. Nobody’s possession (Kurt Russell) when his plane is shot down by terrorists that were also on board. It’s up to Dom Toretto and his family, which has become quite small, to find and secure the computer hemisphere. Where? Why, in the jungle of a fictional state called Montequinto.
So they fly there, unload a Yamaha YZ450F, a 2020 Dodge Charger Hellcat Widebody and a few other companions and rampage around. Already during the first big action scene, the overarching problem with action scenes in the movie becomes apparent: they just never end. Sure, a car chase is exciting and cool. A shootout is, too. And so are fist fights. Not to mention our beloved main cast, who find themselves blasting through a minefield. It has you on the edge of your seat.
The problem is if you put each of these scenes right after the other and let them go on for what feels like 25 minutes, it gets boring. Even more so because the movie is two and a half hours long. And you know that everyone’s bound to survive the first confrontation with Jakob Toretto (John Cena) in a 2015 Ford Mustang GT 350.
This continues throughout the entire movie. Must Vin Diesel get sudden superpowers, which allow him to demolish at least 15 of the 50 «best men» of a trained private army, throw an entire building on them and then fall into the water? If so, couldn’t it be done in half the time?
The self-aware move
Here’s an idea: it could work if there was actually a real threat. But the movie neglects to tell a clean story in this respect: there’s a whole army after Dom Toretto and his family. With machine guns. In a jungle. In a minefield. Roman Pearce (Tyrese Gibson) is surrounded and unarmed. He’s shot at by at least ten soldiers and survives without a scratch. Afterwards, Dom and Letty drive over a cliff in the Charger (the Yamaha died on them). They snag a loose rope in the Charger’s right front wheel and swing over a ravine that’s several kilometres deep. They then land on the other side, rolling over a few times in the process, but completely uninjured.
No wonder that, in one of the movie’s best scenes, Roman gets the idea that he’s not a normal human. He speaks openly what the audience has been thinking for at least four films: Toretto’s family is invincible; a crew of superhumans who happen to also drive cars. This idea isn’t even so far-fetched after the spin-off movie «Hobbs and Shaw».
But even Roman’s self-awareness can’t save «Fast & Furious 9» as it stands. The series has become so insane that it’s no longer possible to create an actual physical or virtual threat to the main characters – and with that, suspense. And by also making the action scenes too long and therefore too boring, the movie becomes quite dull and just drags for what feels like an eternity.
But what about the family?
I get you. I also like the aspect of family in the «Fast Saga», as the series is now referred to. There’s a troupe of archetypes, all badass. And they’re as loyal to each other as we were back on the monkey bars in kindergarten. These are simple and silly messages that sound intelligent and important in this context. Namely, the purely fictitious subculture of street racers. Maybe it’s this feeling of closeness that many in the real world are missing?
Philosophising aside, it’s the chemistry between the characters that has made the series what it is – and even made cars literally jumping from skyscraper to skyscraper appear plausible.
With a running time of two and a half hours, there should be enough time for moments of tenderness between Dom and Letty. And moments in which Roman and Tej wind each other up. And moments in which The Rock – who’s absence from this movie is painfully obvious – drops stupid lines. Mia talks about Brian, who happens to be off camera. All these things are what make the series what it is, in addition to the action. And all these things are what I want to see, in addition to the action.
Unfortunately, the movie messes that up, too. Letty and Dom, now parents, secretly long to return to a life full of shooting and racing around. The movie also fails to explain how Han (Sung Kang) is still alive. And it would be nice to know why Sean (Lucas Black) is in Germany all of a sudden. Then we find out that Han has his own family, and his own backstory... and blah blah blah. It’s nonsense when it’s clearly only an afterthought and is overshadowed anyway by the botched flashbacks to the Toretto brothers’ youth. The Toretto sister, meanwhile, is completely absent from the flashbacks. Seems she just randomly sprang into existence one day.
After two and a half hours, the cinema speakers blast Skepta and Pop Smoke’s «Lane Switcha», and I fold the blanket on the Pathé bed. The movie is so dumb that I wasn’t even entertained.
A bunch of baloney.
What a shame.
But the cars are pretty.
So there you have it – «Fast & Furious 9». And you better believe I’ll be back in the cinema for part 10!
Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.
