WHEELING AND DEALING
Get buckled in for lap 8 of ‘Furious’ series
A James Bond movie in which everyone drives an Aston-Martin and a super-photogenic Charlize Theron plays Dr. Evil in spaghettithin blond dreads, “The Fate of the Furious,” the eighth film in the “The Fast and the Furious” film series, arrives, and in the words of fanboys everywhere, it is what it is.
This means that the film, directed by F. Gary Gray (“Straight Outta Compton”) and scripted by Chris Morgan (“Furious 7”) and based on characters created by Gary Scott Thompson (“Hollow Man”), is yet another conglomeration of supercars, many of which fly through the air and explode like July Fourth fireworks; facial stubble; women in elaborate hairdos, lip gloss and short skirts and shorts; and plot and dialogue borrowed from those interchangeable “Mission: Impossible” films.
We are reunited in Cuba with Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his beloved family: Dom's wife and fellow badass Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez), whose face was designed for close-ups; technological mastermind Tej Parker (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges), similarly gifted Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel, “Game of Thrones”) and funny guy Roman (Tyrese Gibson). After a car race between Dom and Cuban tough guy Raldo (an appealing Celestino Cornielle) ends with Dom crossing the finish line in reverse in a car that is on fire, DSS agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), whose wardrobe is entirely sleeveless, takes a break from coaching his young daughter's soccer team. He accepts an offer from smart aleck-y Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell, reprising the role) and his rookie sidekick nicknamed Little Nobody (Scott Eastwood) to use the God's Eye device to stop superplane-equipped cyber-terrorist Cipher (Theron) from starting World War III. Also in the mix is rogue British assassin Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), who is in prison and determined to verbally assault, physically fight and beat the giant-sized Hobbs.
Like its recent predecessors, “The Fate of the Furious” takes a globe-trotting and supervillain cue from the aforementioned Bond series, and along with the tech-savvy “M:I” angle, adds the car racing element and wraps the whole package in a notably contemporary, multi-ethnic, multicultural package.
Would it have worked without the talent, sex appeal, screen presence and camaraderie that Vin Diesel, the late Paul Walker, Rodriguez and more recently the still underrated Johnson and Statham bring to it? Undoubtedly not. Gray, who is new to the franchise but not new to car chases (he directed the 2003 “The Italian Job” remake with Theron), is probably forced by the nature of this sort of mayhem to edit the film in a way that makes it impossible to follow the action closely. The fate of the furious is apparently to be chopped into tiny, tiny pieces and shot on dreaded shaky cam.
(“The Fate of the Furious” contains gun violence, a suggestive scene, explosions and ear-splitting sound effects.)