Fate of the Furious: Continuing the series

“Fate of the Furious” is just another addition to the ever growing saga of Fast and Furious movies and makes absolutely no attempt to be anything but another Fast and Furious movie, but let me tell you it’s a great one. Much like its predecessor “Furious 7” this movie continues to make lame attempts at ethos following the death of the franchise star Paul Walker, although just saying ‘family’ only serves to strip the word of all meaning. In short, if you’re watching any Fast and Furious movie while paying any attention to plot, storyline, dialogue, or just plain logic you will be sorely disappointed. Any realist that pays their hard earned cash to see Fate of the Furious is expecting blood pumping, nitrous fueled races and heart attack-inducing action, even if it is punctuated by the occasional character arc; those people will not be let down.

The movie begins on the culturally dense island of Cuba because, honestly, why not? As far as I know, no Fast and Furious movie has ever taken place there and Vin Diesel is maybe Cuban in this movie. It really doesn’t matter because after one nitrous fueled drag race Torreto and his team are called back into action, again, probably not for the last time either. However this time there’s a catch, Dominic Toretto, loving Husband and patriarchal figure of the Fast and Furious series is the bad guy. That’s not a spoiler; it’s literally the only plot point.

The rest of the movie follows the Fast and Furious team, now only five people deep, on their mission to stop global cyber terrorism while facing off against the only iconic character the series has left. The plot provides just barely enough reason for the destruction and mayhem caused by their all out automobile brawl in New York and international sabotage that takes place in the arctic circle.

You may think this sounds like just about any other Fast and Furious movie that came after Fast Five, but you would be mistaken. Fate of the Furious pushes the very boundaries of cinematic brutality. This film knows you want car crashes, so it delivers a purely appalling amount just over the course of one ten-minute sequence, probably the most ever projected on the silver screen. Have you ever seen a man face off against dozens of armed guards on an airplane while holding an infant child? If you haven’t, don’t worry, you’re not missing out on much but it is a creative way to up the stakes and foster some semblance of empathy for the characters on screen and to be fair I seriously doubt anyone has ever even thought about doing it before.

If you choose to see this movie while it’s still in theaters, leave all your conceptions of what makes cinema ‘good’ at the door. While the film does make an occasional attempt at having a plot you have to be honest with yourself. You’re here to see cars blow up, and in this way, Fate of the Furious hits its mark dead on.