“… proves that the Fast and Furious series is far from out of gas.”

Well, this is it folks. The moment I have been building up to for the past two weeks is finally here: The Fate of the Furious was released. The Fate of the Furious is the eighth installment in the Fast and Furious franchise (get it? F8. Like ‘Fate’, but with an eight) and it finds the Fast and Furious crew betrayed by Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel). That’s right, the man who single-handedly kept the family together is now the one trying to tear them apart. The film follows the rest of the crew as they attempt to thwart Dom’s evil plans, as well as figure out why the hell he suddenly turned heel (so to speak).

The Fast and Furious franchise was by no means getting old, but when looking at the previous films you have to wonder how long the shtick could continue. Most of the films (at least the later ones) followed a similar pattern: bad guy is introduced, the crew is asked to to do something, they say “no”, then they agree, then they drive cars real fast and kick ass. I could have watched this exact formula for another twenty movies, but instead it was decided to switch things up a bit; and I do appreciate that. Instead of sticking to the tried and true formula, it was decided that Dominic would become a villain which means that the team finally has a worthy opponent. This added a different side to the film that I really liked, but I’ll try not to go into too much detail because I don’t want to spoil the movie. I appreciate that The Fate of the Furious had us follow both Dom and the crew, because it gave us different perspective on what we were seeing. Not only were we witnessing the crew that we know and love gear up to take down a man who used to be a part of their family, but we also get to see Dom complete tasks almost as elaborate as ones in the previous films by himself; this really showcased the power and determination in the character of Dominic Toretto. One thing I do wish is that the reason Dom turned to the dark side would have been kept a secret, because that would have added to the tension of the film; as it stands the story isn’t bad, but we already know the outcome which gets rid of any questions we would have. I also really liked the world-building that went into The Fate of the Furious, mainly showing that choices characters make have consequences. It was nice of the film to acknowledge that even outside of the insane car chases and ridiculous fist fights, the world still goes on. It just added to the feeling of immersion into this world, and I thought it was a very mature thing for the writer to include. Apart from all of that, The Fate of the Furious was pretty much what you would expect from another Fast and Furious movie. I liked that Jason Statham got to reprise his role as Deckard Shaw because not only is Jason Statham fucking awesome, but the relationship in the film between Shaw and Hobbs (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) is absolutely fucking hilarious. Speaking of banter, The Fate of the Furious had a lot of it. Between Shaw and Hobbs the one-liners were biting and rather harsh, but on the flip-side you have Little Nobody (Scott Eastwood) being a great foil to Roman (Tyrese Gibson) which allowed for a lot of really hilarious moments.

Really the last thing to talk about would be the action set pieces. It’s a close call, but I would have to say that The Fate of the Furious has the biggest action that we have ever seen in a Fast and Furious film, but it’s also really well thought-out. I’m not going to spoil these scenes because they’re the whole reason you go and see the movie, but I will say that every action scene that occurred seemed to top the last one. And it’s not only the big action scenes that tickled my fancy, because the scene in the prison at the beginning of the film might be my favourite action scene in any Fast and Furious movie. The way the the filmmakers keep upping the ante and creating tension, even though we as an audience know that being afraid for any of the characters onscreen is pointless, is absolutely amazing to me. The use of different environments proves to me that the series is still running on a full tank of gas, and there is no sign of it stopping. Sure some of the things we are seeing are outright insane, but there is nothing so outlandish that it takes me out of the film. Everything that happens is set up well enough that I have no choice but to say “Well of course that would happen”. The Fate of the Furious is made so well that it is actually making me justify hordes of cars driving through New York, or a submarine fighting a Lamborghini. Everything leads into everything else so nicely that I just have to step back and appreciate all of the care that went into this film. Even the CGI, which is usually the biggest potential issue, looked fucking amazing. It’s tough for me to put into words just how much I loved The Fate of the Furious; it cemented my faith in the franchise and even made me regret any doubts that I had before hand.

Overall The Fate of the Furious proves that the Fast and Furious series is far from out of gas. Everything from the story to the action and even the humour was done with so much care and love for the franchise. I understand that movies like The Fate of the Furious are there to make money, but if they keep turning out quality like this they’ll never have to worry about it again.

I give The Fate of the Furious an A