The Fate of the Furious - Review
This review of The Fate of the Furious is spoiler-free.
The Fast and Furious franchise has made itself a huge part of film culture since it's introduction in 2001. Having originally been more about formal street racing and the world around it, the holders of the franchise quickly realized that would not last. This realization resulted in a change of direction for the franchise: moving away from street racing and more towards action and heist style films. This change turned out to be for the best for the franchise, resulting in the great Fast Five and other stand outs such as Fast and Furious 6 and Furious 7. The Fate of The Furious though has a problem on it's back: the death of Paul Walker. His absence was addressed in the previous iteration of the franchise, but many fans clamored for more. Did Fate manage to handle the lost of Walker well or is there a gap left in the franchise by his absence? Let's start with the story.
The Fate of the Furious is a rather generic film of betrayal and redemption. I'll state right away that this isn't the most unique story beat for the time of it's release. The idea of a film focusing on in-fighting was very common and done multiple times through other films like Civil War, Batman v. Superman, and Transformers. It was clearly telegraphed from the beginning the direction this story would be taking. While that wasn't necessarily disappointing, it did immediately mean that the film wouldn't stand out like the previous iterations. The continuous theme of "Family" was hammered home here and it just simply was too much for me. But, I'll discuss my negatives more near the end of the article, we need to discuss some of our characters.
Charlize Theron as Cipher originally stood out to me in the pre-release ad runs for the film. Seeing another big name actor come into this franchise was exciting for me, but her run in the film just was again far too generic for my tastes. She came across as the usual hacker style villain with a bit of blackmail on Dominic. Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) has become a major part of these films and that is definitely for the benefit. While the other people in Toretto's family do have their charm and comedic ability, they have grown a bit tiresome throughout all of the previous iterations. Having a bit larger role in this film is Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell), and while I do enjoy seeing what occurs behind the wall, they manage to introduce another character done by Helen Mirren that simply filled that same position for the majority of the film.
OK, now I can truly get into my negatives with the film. Firstly I mentioned it in a previous section but that topic of family just gets slammed over your head continuously here. I had grown used to the word and it's meaning in the previous films but just the constant bashing of it wore on me throughout. Another thing that nagged at me throughout the entirety is the generic steal the macguffin and use it to wreak havoc. It wasn't unique at all and I simply didn't have any interest in the plot. I understand that these films have become another series more focused on making money, but I still go into them hoping they can create an intriguing story. Finally the other major problem I have is that they attempt to mesh Deckard Shaw into the family. I was not very happy with this for the general idea that he killed another member of the group in a previous film and that shouldn't have just been passed over the way it was.
The Fate of the Furious, while a fun action film, doesn't do anything to stand out like it's predecessors do. While I can say all of these negatives about the film, there is something to be said simply for it's ability to keep me interested purely for the action and what's going on on screen. I was never feeling drained of the film throughout, but I was bored. This is the perfect film for you to watch with a bunch of friends if you don't necessarily want to pay attention for detail but still want to having something enjoyable. Fate is a fun film, but is a misstep for the franchise. I can only hope that the next few films in this series steer it back on track.
