Ok. We are at number eight and believe it or not, not counting the Clone Wars, it is equivalent to the number of Star Wars movies we have. That's unbelievable. However, nobody expected the franchise to go that far. Let's take Fast Five, easily the best movie of the franchise, out of the equation. Would the franchise keep going? Most likely not. It is that movie that morphed into a franchise because of the characters, the chemistry amongst family, the action sequences and last but least, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. But, unfortunately, the loss of Paul Walker triggered a halt in the franchise but lovingly closed up his character's chapter. So, with this new movie, this opens up a new trilogy (oh my!), according to Vin Diesel, and if this is the first movie to open up a new trilogy, this movie again has cool stunt work and action sequences, however, the dark story that was supposed to trigger some realism into its silliness gets the movie to slow down and go astray.
Dominic Toretto and Letty (Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez) are married and celebrating their honeymoon in Cuba. Dom, as usual, sticks with family and helps his cousin out by racing a guy named Raldo (Celesto Cornielle). If Raldo wins, he keeps Dom's Impala and vice versa. As usual, he wins the race. Later on, Dom is going around town and spots a woman named Cipher (Charlize Theron) while she is fixing her own car. She says his name and blackmails him into working with her, betraying his crew as they are in Berlin retrieving an EMP weapon.
After Dom, Letty, Hobbs (Dwayne "The Rock Johnson), Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Ludacris) and Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) finish the job, Dom takes the EMP and leaves Hobbs to get arrested as he tells them that he has gone rogue. Hobbs is locked in the same prison as Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), from the last movie, with their cells right across from each other. Later, while in prison, Hobbs's cell door opens automatically. The guards come in to put Hobbs back but Deckard escapes, using a prison guard's baton to open the cell door and opening every prisoner's cell door. Hobbs and Deckard fight both guards and inmate before meeting with Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell). Their mission is to stop Cipher from using a weapon and get Dom Toretto back.
Eh...this movie. I have to admit I had fun with the cool action sequences, how cars are used and the third act. The main problem is the dark element and takes the story and the wackiness a bit more seriously than the last three movies and that takes away from the silly spirit of how each character are having fun. I cannot reveal the dark element because it is the twist as to why Dom has gone rogue and against his "family". However, it slows the movie down and I got a little bored with its dark story with a device that has been used in action movies in the past such as White House Down or Elysium. It gets predictable and not much stake is at hand within that inner circle of Dom's life.
Vin Diesel is not a great actor again because he looks a bit stiff, a bit more noticeable in this movie, and mumbles his dialogue. However, he has more screen presence alongside Charlize Theron, who is the villain. But, again, the story becomes a bit plodding and I felt like they should have taken off 10-15 minutes and get a tighter and concise feel for the main plot. I was excited for Charlize Theron to be in this movie because she can play great action villains, heroes or femme fatales but I was disappointed as to how they used her character as she is stuck hacking inside a plane for most of the movie. Helen Mirren has an appearance having some fun as a character related to a few former villains. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Michelle Rodriguez still have fun and kick, Tyrese still shouts and recites one-liners and Tej becomes more knowledgable and have chemistry with Tyrese's character.
Director F. Gary Gray who made Straight Outta Compton had great momentum going in his stride but seemed to miss the mark a little bit by inserting gritty and dark realism into the characters in a silly, high-adrenaline franchise. Some of his attempts work but does not work within the characters especially into why Dom goes rogue. Also, there are a bit of errors in some characters' relationship between a few, most notably, Dom and Deckard Shaw, that felt forced and needed some recap in order to arrive at that conclusion because it did not make sense. Also, there is a bit of an error towards the end to a nice tribute to Paul Walker that somehow does not correlate to the character in the franchise. Nevertheless, I still had silly fun watching the action and the characters' banter but some of the silliness is taken away from the grittiness that did not go into full throttle. If you're going to watch this movie, fine. But, for me, I will watch it again when it comes out to maybe find out if it still holds up or there are more errors. It is a like car that goes into a few gears but will not go fast.
**1/2
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