Riding the success of “Straight Outta Compton,” director F. Gary Gray jumps into one of the most successful franchises of all time with “The Fate of the Furious,” the eighth installment in a series that seems increasingly critic-proof. How big are these movies? They have made almost $4 billion worldwide, with the last one shattering the previous series record, bringing in $1.5 billion on its own. There are big franchises and then there’s “The Fast and the Furious” movies, which have found the perfect blend of international appeal, ridiculous action and, of course, an emphasis on “family,” whatever that word means to you. Regardless of reviews, this series is too big to fail. It’s going to be around for a very long time. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be disappointed that “The Fate of the Furious” distinctly drops the level of quality in this series for the first time this decade.
With a series that has been this wide-ranging in terms of critical appeal, it feels like a declaration of taste is appropriate. I didn’t care much about the films at all until “Fast Five” although I agreed that “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” took more risks and was more fun than the awful second ("2 Fast 2 Furious") and possibly-worst fourth film ("Fast & Furious"). It took five movies to figure out the franchise, turning them into roller coasters that alternated between cartoonish action set pieces and heartfelt conversations about makeshift families. They seemed like the answer to “What if we made the entire movie like those insane opening bits from the Bond movies? Plus family.” And the series only got better with the inclusion of new faces like Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham and Kurt Russell. Yes, they’re ridiculous—but that’s also why they’re fun.
So, why isn’t “The Fate of the Furious” more fun? That’s going to be the question to which you keep returning as you watch all 136 minutes of this film that’s relatively enjoyable when compared to other hollow blockbusters but relatively disappointing when compared to the high points of this series. First and foremost, it’s a movie that’s over two hours long and has almost no plot. Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) betrays his team after being forced to work against them by a Bond-esque supervillain named Cipher (Charlize Theron). They work to stop him and get him back in their “family.” That’s about it. Throughout, almost everyone gets one-and-a-half emotions. Michelle Rodriguez does the most she can with her blend of confusion and love for the man that may be trying to kill her now. Jason Statham and Dwayne Johnson do a lot with their characters' rivalry, even it feels more like a Shane Black ‘80s action comedy than this series ever has before. Even the settings seem thin in terms of writing. The action jumps around the globe in a way that looks calculated for international appeal more than any real use of location. I picture a whiteboard in the writers room that says “Cuba=Hot, Russia=Cold.” And while it’s become something of a joke to say that these films are all about “family,” it really functions like a crutch here. They use the word over a dozen times, almost as if it’s the fallback when they couldn’t think of anything else plot-wise to link the action sequences.
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