‘F9’: Fallen from chase – The San Francisco Examiner
‘F9’, the tenth entry in the never-ending “Fast and Furious” series – spin-off “Hobbes & Shaw” – is a big summer movie that the industry is hoping to get people back to theaters on Friday too bring.
The audience must be in a forgiving mood.
Fans are used to looking past the ridiculousness, boasting, and soap opera drama of the series for the good things: chases, fights, and explosions.
“F9” delivers the goods in a handful of scenes and some really impressive, breathtaking stunts. But then there is the other 80% of a 145 minute film to deal with.
Directed by Justin Lin, the film focuses on Dominic “Dom” Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his dark past in its fifth appearance in the series (he was also behind numbers 3-6).
Starting with a flashback to 1989, the young Dom cuts off his racing teeth and helps his father, a racing driver. Something goes terribly wrong during a race, and Dom and his younger brother Jakob have a huge argument. That might be enough information to fuel the little plot here, but the flashbacks go on throughout the film.
Today Dom and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) live peacefully in a remote farmhouse and raise Dom’s son.
(In Part 8, The Fate of the Furious, it was revealed that Dom had a son he knew nothing about from a previous affair. While these films may be stupid, viewers must be fairly familiar with their extensive lore.)
The calm is quickly interrupted when Tej (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges), Roman (Tyrese Gibson) and Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) arrive.
They bring a mangled, twitching video message from Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell). (Why does a buggy video only look like this in the movies?)
Apparently someone is after a doomsday device called Project Aries. Two halves of the device must be procured, followed by a secret key that activates them.
The team set out to find the first half, leaving the little kid behind, apparently not being watched by anyone. (There may be an explanation for this, but it’s more goofy and weird than anyone dares imagine.)
After a massive chase – including an amazing section of a rickety rope bridge – modern day Jakob (John Cena, making his “F&F” debut) grabs the first part of the device and drives away.
As in any “Must collect the three parts of a Dingamajig” story, the bad guys get the doomsday device working, and then it’s up to our heroes to stop it, preferably when the last, end of the world upload hits around 99.9%.
The task is to have two team members go where no F&F team member has been before: into space to create another of the movie’s few precious, super cool scenes.
There are many car chases along the way. In the last entry, “The Fate of the Furious,” filmmakers came up with crazy things, including a wrecking ball rushing through city blocks and knocking cars off the street, and a car chase between motor vehicles and a submarine!
In “F9” most car chases are connected to powerful electromagnets that, mounted in the rear of various vehicles, pull parked cars in front of moving cars or tear metallic objects out of shop windows when the heroes drive by.
It’s fun for a while and the stunts are varied at first. But the basic idea is repeated over and over again.
And in a smaller martial arts fight in an apartment, Lin falls back on his old jerky, jerky camera work, which creates chaos rather than suggests.
The “family” theme here focuses on the predictable and all too serious conflict between the cathedral and Jacob. Cena shows none of his natural humor, and Diesel has an unchanging grim expression throughout.
In other “family” stuff, previous actors reappear – including Cipher (Charlize Theron), Queenie (Helen Mirren) and Sean (Lucas Black) – for the purpose of audience identification.
But recognizing and feeling characters is different. Perhaps this franchise’s DNA is the problem. In the beginning, the films were nothing more than characters trying to outdo and outdo each other. Maybe the fear of being uncool remains.
Perhaps filmmakers feared that being silly or honest is the opposite of cool when the opposite is true. If “F9” had the courage to acknowledge its ridiculousness, it could have rushed into the sunset instead of spitting.
REVIEW: Q9: The Quick Saga
With: Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, John Cena, Jordana Brewster
Written by: Justin Lin, Daniel Casey
Directed by: Justin Lin
Rated: PG-13
Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes
Movies and television
If you find our journalism valuable and relevant, please consider joining our Examiner membership program.
Learn more at www.sfexaminer.com/join/
