OnScreen Review: "F9: The Fast Saga"
Ken Jones, Chief Film Critic
We are now nine movies deep into the Fast & Furious franchise. It has now been 20 years since The Fast & the Furious introduced us to Dom, Brian, Letty, Mia, and their extended family. What began as a street racing riff on Point Break has against all odds turned into its own equivalent of a superhero/superspy blockbuster franchise. The franchise began to take a turn with Fast & Furious in 2009, reached top speed with Fast Five, and continued to push the pedal to the metal right through to where we are today. It has also improbably survived the death of one of the franchise’s leads in Paul Walker, and the franchise has thrown in everything it can to fill that void.
Enter F9: The Fast Saga, the latest entry in this franchise that has pushed about every limit there is to car-based action on earth. So where do you go when you have exhausted practically every option of a car stunt on earth? Why, outer space of course. It tough to recall whether it started as a joke online or during the press tour for the last movie, or a self-referential joke of where they could possibly go after jumping cars between skyscrapers, parachuting them out of a plane, and fighting a submarine on ice, but the only “logical” next step was to leave the constraints of this planet and voyage out into space. We have reached the Moonraker phase of the Fast & Furious franchise.
Of course, not all of them go to space, but going to space is indeed part of the plan of thwarting the latest villain in the franchise, a snotty trust fund baby of a European billionaire who just happens to have Dom’s (Vin Diesel’s) heretofore unmentioned younger brother Jakob (John Cena). In franchise that is all about family, it’s odd that this brother has never once come up in any conversation, also happens to be in the same line of work that Dom and his crew have just causally slid into over the last few movies, and is suddenly a convenient deus ex machina to challenge the family theme that has been so strongly emphasized in this action franchise.
In flashbacks to 1989, we’re shown the fateful day that Dom’s father died in a car wreck, and how the events of that day led to the estrangement between Dom and Jakob and how they have ended up, inevitably, on opposite sides in the present day. Shockingly, or perhaps not so shockingly, the younger Dom (Vinnie Bennett) comes across as significantly taller than Vin Diesel’s Dom. Why they couldn’t have done some de-ageing CGI given that 1989 was only 12 years before the original film in the franchise is beyond me. It worked for Robert DeNiro.
In the present day, Dom, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), Mia (Jordana Brewster), Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Ludacris), and Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) face off against Jakob, the Euro trust fund baby, and their crew while trying to retrieve pieces of a super weapon that… well, the plot only kind of, sort of matters in the grand scheme of things as it’s really all about the outrageous car stunts and the defying of logic and physics, even though, incredulously, the importance of physics is stressed when it comes to putting a car in outer space.
The importance of physics is far less important when crossing a minefield. Or when you slingshot a car across the ocean from one island to another, crashing the car into rocks, flipping it over 7-8 times, all with the characters inside not wearing their seatbelts, and coming out unscathed. Or when an armer military vehicle is toppling down a hill, suddenly lands on its wheels and loses all downward momentum from gravity and is able to just drive forward at top speed. Even the dead do not stay dead (hello Sung Kang’s Han!), unless they have moved onto their own bigger, better franchise (still deceased, Gal Gadot’s Gisele). Also, the stunt team seems to have discovered a new favorite go-to move where one of our fearless heroes runs toward a foe tackles them, with their momentum carrying both of them over a ledge or out a window onto the street/ground/moving truck below them.
Against all odds, even with all of the mind-numbing action, the obvious plot twists and the inevitable resolution of the family drama, F9: The Fast Saga is still a mostly enjoyable ride, if for no other reason that it is doing everything with a wink and a nod to the audience and maybe with a bit of tongue in check. Early on, Roman posits that they may be invincible on account of all of the death-defying feats they have pulled off on their super-missions over the years, and with nary a scratch to show for it all. At another point, Charlize Theron’s Cipher makes an appearance (how much did she get paid for what had to be one day of work?), and actually says, “You know, if this were a movie…” And then of course, the emphasis on physics in space in a movie that defies all physics and logic has to be deliberate. Also, magnets become heavily involved in the story, which means someone watched the “Yeah bitch, magnets!” episode of Breaking Bad before writing this movie.
The Fast & Furious franchise has carved out a loyal corner of the movie market, something that is invaluable and also important in the current climate of movie theater chains struggling due to the pandemic. It is hard to say where the franchise can turn next after leavings the confines of Earth for outer space, but F9: The Fast Saga reveals a franchise that shows no signs of slowing down, even if it feels like they may be running out of road. But when has that ever stopped them? Maybe that never-ending tarmac in Fast & Furious 6 was symbolic of the trajectory of the franchise. Just keep living your life a quarter mile at a time, Dom.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars