Summary
The franchise straddles the thin line between escalation and self-parody – then just smashes through it with a rocket car.
It’s 2001. Actor Vin Diesel had turned in some fan favourite supporting performances in Saving Private Ryan and the cult hit Pitch Black. Director Rob Cohen casts him alongside The Skulls co-lead Paul Walker in The Fast and the Furious after Timothy Olyphant declined the role. The movie is Point Break on land, but it’s a success. Two decades later, it has spawned eight sequels, a spin-off and an animated series. This is Vin Diesel’s timeline, and we are just living it in.
Picking up some threads from The Fate of the Furious (or F8 if you’re nasty), F9 sees Dominic Toretto (Diesel) living the blissful family life in the country with his wife Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and son. When his old crew turns up with news that Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) has disappeared — and his McGuffin too — Dom reluctantly goes back into the field. Especially when he learns that his old foe Cipher (Charlize Theron) and a familiar face (John Cena) are involved.
From its humble street racing origins, the Fast and the Furious franchise has continuously relied on the principle of escalation. While the early entries attempted to be something of an anthology series on various racing crews, from the fourth entry onwards returning director Justin Lin has attempted something closer to a singular universe. The crew rapidly became mercenaries for hire, pseudo government agents and even super spies being chased by submarines.
This time out, Lin not only ties in his past entries — even making black sheep Tokyo Drift a central plot device — but quite literally shoots the franchise into the stratosphere. This means the return of some characters we thought were dead. It also means globetrotting from Montequinto to the Caspian Sea, Edinburgh, Cologne and, of course, Tokyo. Lucas Black turns up in a goofy cameo, as does a major past ally. (We won’t spoil it here, but some of the promotional posters do that already).
One of the more ambitious threads is a whole new backstory for young Dom in 1989 (played by Vinnie Bennett). Opening with flashbacks to a young Toretto on the racing circuit with his late father Jack (J.D. Pardo) and pit crew Buddy (Michael Rooker), it’s an arguably convoluted way to justify the introduction of a hitherto unmentioned Toretto sibling. More cynically, it could open the door for future spin-offs. Did someone say the Young Toretto Chronicles?
Yet we’d be lying if the main attraction wasn’t the action sequences. From the physics-defying bridge jump early in the film, there’s some impressive elements here. The biggest set-piece follows the series tradition of dragging stuff behind cars, and this time its super magnets instead of cables. Then there’s the rocket propelled car that slips the surly bonds of Earth and dances the skies on laughter-silvered wings. Yes, they really did it, right before killing a plane with a truck. Is it dumb? Hell yes it is. Is it my kind of dumb? See the previous answer.
At this point, having progressed from jacking DVD players to shooting a car into space, a sequel based around time travel is about the only place this franchise can go. Perhaps Toretto will get behind the wheel of a DeLorean in the ultimate Universal crossover. So, I’m calling it now: F10: Fast to the Future. Don’t pretend you wouldn’t be first in line to see it.
2021 | USA | DIRECTOR: Justin Lin | WRITERS: Daniel Casey, Justin Lin | CAST: Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, John Cena, Jordana Brewster, Nathalie Emmanuel, Sung Kang, Michael Rooker, Helen Mirren, Kurt Russell, Charlize Theron | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures | RUNNING TIME: 145 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 18 June 2021 (AUS), 25 June 2021 (US)
