Review: 'The Fate of the Furious' is a Rollicking Ride

Samuel Kaufman ’19/ Emertainment Monthly Staff Writer
Reviewer’s Note: This reviewer has only seen two of the Fast and the Furious movies (7 and now 8).
The Fate of the Furious is the eighth movie in The Fast and Furious franchise, a franchise which has grown from poorly reviewed movies about cars, to rivaling The Avengers as one of the largest superhero blockbusters in the world.
Note: While the characters in F8 are technically not “superheroes” by any standard definition, they survive multiple gunshot wounds, fiery car crashes, heat-seeking missiles, and being thrown to the pavement at upwards of 100 mph. Also, they save the world each film. They’re definitely superheroes.

This movie is less of a cohesive story than it is a chunk of a larger entity. It’s feels like a Saturday Morning Cartoon, with all of the plusses and minuses associated with that. Actually, “cartoonish” is probably a good word to describe everything that happens in F8. The dialogue, characters, action, muscles, comedy, shots of women’s’ butts – all of it is cartoonish. No matter how high the steaks are raised, the conflicts are just silly fun. In this “episode” our gang has to deal with their leader, Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) turning rogue and working with a new villain – Super evil super hacker Cipher (Charlize Theron) after she proves that she has leverage over him.
All of the usual players – Michelle Rodriguez, The Rock, Ludacris, Jason Statham – fall into the usual shtick. People who have not been in more than one previous “Fast” movie – Kurt Russell and Charlize Theron, plus a super-special-surprise guest who won’t be spoiled here – seem to understand the all-out-bonkers tone these films set and go along with it, all but winking to the camera between takes. The multimillion dollar payout can’t hurt either. What does become apparent very early on is just how good of an actor Dwayne Johnson is. He appears a few scenes in and blows Vin out of the water. This reviewer wouldn’t be surprised if he wins his first Academy Award in the next 5 years.

There are certain plot points that won’t exactly make sense if you haven’t seen the previous movies, but honestly, it’s not even a big enough deal to bother reading all 7 Wikipedia synopses before seeing this. You will be able to glean what is happening and who people are most times, and even when you can’t, it doesn’t matter. Let’s be honest – you don’t need to read this review to know if you should see F8. You knew from the second the trailer dropped if you were someone who was going to see this movie or not. If this looks like something you would hate, don’t see it. But if any part of you got an adrenaline rush when you realized this movie features a nuclear submarine, don’t hesitate to see this movie. You go to see this movie not because it is good in any traditional sense but because it’s a submarine-load of fun. You go because you want to see what cuckoo-bananas thing they can do with cars next.
Go see this movie in theatres. Go with lots of friends. Go to a big screening. Maybe don’t go sober. Have yourself a ball.
Overall Grade: D-
Grade Curved for Fun: A
Watch The Trailer: [embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwMKRevYa_M[/embedyt]