The Fast & Furious franchise isn't exactly known for their realism and I don't think anyone actually goes to see the films for that sort of thing. This one passed under my radar because I would never go and see one of these in the cinema, even if it does have John Cena in it. It took me about 3 sittings to get through this because it is so long and also because I know that the story in these films is rather irrelevant.
HUGE spoilers ahead but then again, this if a Fast and Furious film so you already know the outcome anyway
By the end of it I was kind of glad I watched it though, if for nothing else the fact that they kind of have to up the ante in each new installment, even if these changes completely defy any rules of physics or even logic for that matter.
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John Cena is the main reason why I bothered with this in the first place. I feel as though he has potential to be a fantastic actor but he kind of gets overlooked because, at least in part, the fact that Dwayne Johnson is such a huge star from WWE already.
The 9th installment, well, I would like to say that it picks up where the others left off but I honestly don't remember what the plot was with the other ones. Something about fending off a group dedicated to taking over the world or something. This one instead focuses on Dom (Vin Diesel's) brother Jakob Toretto (John Cena) who has never even been mentioned in any of the F&F movies that came before as far as I know. So if you don't have an actual plot we can just continue to make up new family members. Why not?
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The look nothing alike and clearly do not come from the same racial background but what the hell, why not?
Things start out just as ludicrously as you might expect when a jungle operation that could have been better handled by the actual military instead involves rather silly vehicles that are not very well equipped to handle that sort of terrain.
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The rediculosity of this encounter is capped off by driving one car up a collapsed bridge that they were unaware was made of planks of wood (no recon done, awesome) and then another car flying off a cliff to get picked up mid-air by a gigantic drone (totally possible) and then Dom using the remnants of the now collapsed bridge to create a sort of wheel slingshot to get him to the other side, which if you know anything about how cables, tires, axles, or gravity function, would never work. Whatever though right? They did drag a massive safe through the streets using cars that weigh nowhere near enough to accomplish that feat in the past.
Things continue to get more absurd when they are introduced to some extremely powerful electromagnets that are capable of pulling anything magnetic across vast distances yet somehow manage to have zero effect on the metal casing of the vehicles they are contained in, or any of the electronics that in real life would be immediately wiped and torn to bits if something like this actually existed. To be fair, something like this actually could and probably does exist, but it would be so huge that transporting it would not be an option. But this is Fast and Furious, not a science documentary.
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Despite the complete absence of realism in these scenes as well as the fact that the people who made them are having them used against them and don't have any solution to that issue somehow, the stunts are still extremely impressive and most of it doesn't appear to be too overloaded with CGI. This means that these stunts had to at least in part be pulled off by actual vehicles and actual stunt drivers and to me, that is worth the watch on its own.
Things get really silly when they modify one of the shittiest cars ever made, a Pontiac Fiero, and fly it into outerspace because that is something that could totally be accomplished. We are never made aware as to how it is that this ragtag group of very attractive people are able to get their hands on rockets, rocket fuel, or the non-existent super jet that gets them up to 60,000 feet for the launch to take place.
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My eyes were rolling into the back of my head at this point but yet, I still found it entertaining because of sheer absurdity of it all. I'm not an astrophysicist, but even I know that the environment of space would immediately tear this car to pieces and kill the people inside of it instantly. I did find it funny that the steering wheel and floor pedals are still used to propel the Fiero through space.
I realize that I have revealed a bunch of what happens in the film and that is why I put a spoiler alert at the start of this, hopefully you saw it and that is why I made it so huge.
I'm not going to include the trailer because it's F&F. Loads of awesome cars and sub-par acting with an absurd plot... just imagine that but with John Cena this time.
Overall I am glad I watched this movie because it gives me something to talk about with my friends and if they have seen it we join in together laughing about how crazy almost everything that happens in this movie is. It is stupid yet exciting entertainment with mostly useless dialogue and a predictable outcome - just like all of the other ones except for maybe the first one that started it all.
I think this is worth seeing and you could probably just put it on in the background while you do something else and turn to see what is going on whenever you hear car engines get really loud.
