Quickie Review Narrative Acrobatics in F9 The Fast Saga

 The Fast & Furious Franchise will always be about family, even it has to back flip and contort multiple different ways to make it work.  

Why do I like these movies?  And Why do I keep going back?  

    The Fast & Furious Franchise is a weird movie anomaly.  The 2001 Point Break rip off   that feels like it accidentally became a Billion Dollar property and Universal Studios bald headed Crown Jewell.  I tried to resist the bombastic and deep base charm of this ridiculous series.  On paper the charms of Paul Walker and Vin Diesel racing cars feels like it would not translate to screen.  But then you have Walker and Diesel driving down Rio De Janeiro freeway dragging two safes behind them in Fast 5.  How can one resist?  There's an odd chemistry to the Fast & Furious, it's all ego and bald heads.  Though, while watching the latest entry F9 I was asking myself a lot why I keep coming back when I am not getting the same thrill of Fast 5 any more. 

    And I say this as someone who mostly enjoyed the experience of sitting in a theatre watching F9.  I have tried multiple time to write a quick plot synopsis, but it is impossible, my eyes from keep going cross eyed like I am in some multiple universe time loop and I have been sent to kill my own grandfather.  Which, to be fair isn't that far away from the actual mechanics of the how the plot works.  With Fast & Furious it's always about Family.  Now throw John Cena as Dom's (Vin Diesel)  lost brother into the mix and that is pretty much about it.  Because I don't know how to explain why Cypher (Charlize Theron) is still in this series.  The Fast and the Furious is more likely to add things than to throw them away, which is why the trailers proudly announced Han (played by Sung Kang) had returned from the dead and was back eating chips.  

    As Adam Riske, a regular contributor to F This Movie, said recently; the purpose of the later Fast & Furious movies is to make you have greater affection for the early movies in the Franchise.  And he is not wrong.  There was a build up and magic point to the first 7 Fast & Furious a mixture pure block buster and it felt quietly that these dopey movies were getting away with something unexpected.   I generally like the characters in Fast & Furious, the past movies have built up a lot of affection for the likes of Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), Tje (Brian Ludicrous Bridges) and of course Han.  I want to see them come back, even if it is from the dead, with amnesia or suddenly being the second best hacker on the planet.  I like watching these characters race cars and fly them off cliffs,  it's just fun, and  I can get a healthier diet of movies elsewhere. 

    Everything in F9 is far too serious.  There's too many bald headed egos in the kitchen.  I don't mind that they sent Tje  and Roman (Tyrese Gibson) into space, or that it felt like they wrote the story backwards from  putting them into space.  But it's all a matter of tone,  and it's Vin Diesel 's overall serious tone that has taken over the franchise.  And that tone is all about the The Torreto Family Saga.  Which is more people looking very intense more than anything else.  It doesn't feel as interesting as maybe Vin Diesel with his Producer Hat thinks it is.  And maybe this is why I become nostalgic for the more simple days of Cars against Tanks.  For me Fast & Furious was about the kinetic energy of moving cars on screen and the moments between the characters.  That isn't to say there aren't those moments in F9, like the race through the mine field or having fun with magnets in Edinburgh, there is still  that spark, and returning director Justin Lin keeps a lot of the action fluid.  I just wish F9 would have more fun with it.  But that is not to say I wont be back to Fast & Furious 10 - cause I will, and I will be eating chips like Han.