Three stars. Rated PG-13, and generously, for relentless, excessive violence and destruction, and occasional profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.14.17
Well, here’s a reason not to get a car with computer-controlled ignition
and navigational systems.
You just never know when an evil
megalomaniac bent on world domination might hack the vehicle, to crash it — and
hundreds of others — into a Russian ambassador’s armor-plated limousine, in
order to steal a suitcase containing the launch codes for all of his country’s
nuclear missiles.
(Hey. It could happen.)
Although there’s some vicarious
delight to be experienced from this and the many other big-ticket sequences in
director F. Gary Gray’s newest installment in this franchise, The Fate of the Furious is a textbook
example of wretched excess: too little substance, too much spectacle.
Way too much. At 136 minutes, this gas-guzzling
behemoth is at least one spectacular action set-piece too long. Probably the
final one, which races on and on and
on.
Something important also has been
lost, since this series debuted in 2001. Back then, the stunt driving was
awesome, the gear-shifting thrills delivering plenty of accelerated excitement.
But the newer films — and particularly this one — make it difficult to admire
the efforts of stunt director Spiro Razatos.
It’s patently obvious that all
the vehicular skirmishes have been sweetened (or perhaps fabricated entirely)
by CGI wizards. The spectacle feels no more real than the outer space battles
in the Star Wars franchise. Granted,
the result remains suspenseful ... but it’s a lot more fun to be impressed by
golly-gee-wow stunt drivers, than by a gaggle of artists hunched over computer
keyboards.
The adrenaline-laden thrill has
been lost.
As has some of this series’
humanity. As several characters in this new film repeatedly remind us, the most
important thing — the only important
thing — is family. That means characters interacting with each other, at
something beyond a superficial level. The banter may be droll in Chris Morgan’s
script, but Gray too frequently cuts away from potential emotion, in order to
showcase yet another vehicular chase or smack-down fist fight.
The one exception is poor Dominic
(Dom) Toretto, who gets put through the wringer this time. To the credit of
star Vin Diesel, we definitely feel the guy’s anguish; even within his limited
acting range, he’s adept at quiet despair and seething, barely repressed fury.
Fans of long-running TV
action/adventure shows know that, eventually, desperate writers succumb to plot
lines that have become well-worn clichés: the one where a core character
succumbs to a horrific disease, but pulls out at the last second; the one where
a beloved character gets amnesia, and doesn’t recognize anybody; the one where
a long-trusted character suddenly seems to have allied with the Dark Side, and
must be hunted by former comrades.
Morgan’s script follows the
latter template, kicking off as Dom — enjoying a Cuban honeymoon with longtime
sweetie Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), and all of their friends — is approached
one morning by an imposing woman in long dreadlocks (Charlize Theron). She has
a job for him; he politely declines. She pushes the point; his graciousness
fades, and he declines again.
She shows him something on her
smart phone. Dom’s expression turns cold. And angry. And — just perceptibly —
resigned.
Back in the States, Hobbs (Dwayne
Johnson) is assigned to assemble the gang for a mission in Berlin, where
they’re to retrieve an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) device that has fallen into
the wrong hands. Hobbs calls Dom, who rallies the troops; they all head to
Germany, saddle up some fast cars, and deftly execute the heist.
At which point, Dom takes off
with the EMP, subsequently delivering it to the much wronger hands of the
mysterious woman — dubbed Cipher — who we subsequently learn is the world’s
most notorious cyber-terrorist.
Hobbs is arrested; the others get
away. As a shackled Hobbs is taken to prison, he’s reunited with Deckard Shaw
(Jason Statham), the incarcerated black ops assassin who served as the previous
film’s Big Bad; and with the enigmatic Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell), the square-jawed
fed who operates quid pro quo and outside the law. He’s accompanied by Eric
Reisner (Scott Eastwood), a younger protégé who quickly demonstrates a tendency
to act before he thinks.
Mr. Nobody offers Hobbs
redemption: Gather the troops again, find and detain Dom and Cipher, retrieve
the EMP, and all will be forgiven. Oh, and you’ll be working alongside Shaw.
This film series has a droll
habit of transforming yesterday’s adversaries into today’s partners, soon to be
friends. Hobbs was introduced as an enemy, back in 2011’s Fast Five, only to become one of the gang; savvy heads recognized Johnson’s
value to the franchise. We therefore shouldn’t be surprised that the equally
charismatic Statham benefits from similar “rehabilitation.”
So far, so good. But Gray starts
to lose control of his film during the second act, and Cipher’s second heist,
of the aforementioned Russian “nuclear football.” This Manhattan-based sequence
goes completely off the rails, with scores and scores of vehicles smashed,
crashed, pulped, pulverized and otherwise mangled during a protracted sequence
that makes the notorious (at the time) indoor mall sequence in 1980’s The Blues Brothers seem tranquil by
comparison.
Two things to ponder:
1) Such mindless, gratuitous
destruction becomes tasteless after awhile, even in a live-action cartoon of
this nature; and, more significantly...
2) The unseen but implied
civilian and police casualties, obviously numbering in the hundreds, is
reprehensible on a scale that was similarly disturbing in 2013’s Man of Steel.
Indeed, this film is incredibly
violent, indiscriminately slaughtering veritable armadas of baddies, along with
legions of collateral good guys — cops, soldiers — just doing their jobs.
Granted, Gray doesn’t linger on the results of such mayhem, and very little
blood is shown ... but a quick cutaway doesn’t erase the image of somebody
being shot in the face.
All of which points to this
film’s other big problem: It suffers from a nasty, mean-spirited streak that
detracts from the otherwise frothy tone. This is particularly true in the case
of another character resurrected from an earlier film, obviously present to serve
only one purpose.
The cast deserves credit for
making the most of this uneven brew. Letty remains steadfast as Dom’s main
squeeze, Rodriguez still projecting sufficient tough-chick ’tude as a gal more
than able to handle herself. Nathalie Emmanuel shows pluck as Ramsey, the
computer genius who developed the God’s Eye surveillance hacking device that
figured in a previous film, and reappears here; her accent is particularly
charming.
Tyrese Gibson and Chris
“Ludacris” Bridges get the best one-liners as the Mutt ’n’ Jeff pair Roman and
Tej: the former the ace driver and fast-talking ladies’ man; the latter the
genius mechanic and tech-tactician. Eastwood, finally — looking and sounding
like his father, more and more — is a hoot as the neophyte who keeps learning,
the hard way, of the need to plan. And then improvise.
As always, the cars are to drool
over: from a vintage 1956 Ford Fairlane and Subaru WRX, to a gorgeous
Lamborghini and — during the climactic sequence on the frozen Barents Sea, near
Iceland — a Dodge “Ice” Charger and a Local Motors Rally Fighter.
No surprise: All these skirmishes
are quite noisy in their own right, but Brian Tyler’s shrieking, cacophonous
score — along with a wealth of equally deafening rap and industrial tunes — will
shatter eardrums. Plan accordingly.
Much as I continue to enjoy the
interactions between these characters — the chest-thumping bluster between
Hobbs and Shaw, the banter between Roman and Tej, even the (rare) intimate
moments between Dom and Letty — they’re ill-served and overwhelmed by
relentless overkill: the cinematic equivalent of the jacked-up pickups that
occasionally roar past us on the freeway, with laughably, ludicrously oversized
tires.
That said, I’ve no doubt that
this film will be a monster hit; the series fans can’t get enough of such
mayhem. At some point, though, spectacle for its own sake becomes tedious, and
— based on this newest entry — The Powers That Be are in danger of stripping
away the heart that really powers
this franchise.
Which
would be ironic, given the weight — as with television’s Blue Bloods — that each film has placed on an all-important “shared
meal” scene.
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