Title: F9
Director: Justin Lin
Cast: Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, John Cena, Jordana Brewster, Nathalie Emmanuel, Sung Kang, Michael Rooker, Helen Mirren, Kurt Russell, and Charlize Theron
Movie length: 2 hours 25 minutes
F9 (aka Fast & Furious 9) is the newest installment in the Fast and the Furious franchise, but instead of standing for fast, this time F stands for family.
Let us be honest here you know exactly what you’re getting yourself into by going to see a Fast and the Furious movie nowadays. It’s just like the 80s mindless action where you’re supposed to just turn off your brain and enjoy. If you can accomplish that, you will have a great time with this movie.
It doesn’t take itself seriously and you shouldn’t either. It’s almost a parody of its own self, like the writers and producers saw the memes and saw what people joked about, and instead of correcting it said oh yeah? Well we’ll put that in the movie and will show you who’s laughing now. Still us but maybe not for the reasons you would want. There are a lot of jokes in this movie that generally made me laugh whether that was intentional or not I don’t know, but what I do know is that I had a great time watching this movie.
Unless somebody blindfolded you and brought you to the theater and only removed the blindfold when the movie started, you typically know what type of movie you’re going to watch. And F9 doesn’t disappoint. Is it outlandish? Yes, does it make sense? No, does it break the laws of physics? Absolutely, can you still have a great time watching this movie? Definitely.
The general plot of this movie is, Dominic’s brother (Jakob Toretto played by John Cena) comes back, at least that’s what it said in the credits, I didn’t see anybody. (That’s a joke, For my non wrestling fans.) Apparently Dominic Toretto has a younger brother and that is well elaborated through different flashbacks, which I thought were well done, the only issue was they look nothing like the characters they’re supposed to be portraying. I understand people get older with age and their physical appearance changes but there was no resemblance at all in my opinion.
When the movie begins Dominic just wants to retire in the middle of nowhere with his son and girlfriend, but his younger brother can’t let that happen and starts to work for the bad guys. This leads to Dominic and his gf to come out of retirement and rejoin the mechanic street racers turned super agents AKA his team from the previous movies. There is literally a scene where Dominic Toretto is surrounded by 20 or so armed guards, and they are all kicking him while he’s down. How does he defeat them? By using his super strength and bringing the roof down, no joke.
They also have very strong magnets that can pinpoint exact things they need to magnetize. Like a car and just that one car alone and nothing else. Like those bullets from the movie Wanted with Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy where bullets can turn corners and maneuver when the plot needs them to do so so they hit the target. Yes that’s the kind of logic we are dealing with here.
This is the kind of movie that needs to be seen on the big screen, the way some scenes were filmed they had a bokeh look which made the picture stand out and look 3D.
Overall if you are a big fan of the franchise like me you will have a great time with this movie. And if your main question is, is F9 better than the last movie (The Fate of the Furious)? The answer is simple, yes, a thousand times yes.
I give this movie an A for Acceleration…and that really surprised me because I thought based on the early reviews, I would have thought my grade would have been a C for clutch.
But that end credit scene was the cherry that made me give this movie an A rating. Even though I wish the end credit scene had more of a punch. You will get this pun when you watch the movie.
F9 is currently playing in theaters.
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