by Cain Noble-Davies
Worth: $16.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Ludicris, Charlize Theron, John Cena, Kurt Russell, Helen Mirren
Intro:
...popcorn cinema strapped to a rocket engine...
After submarine chases and Black Superman, what new height of lunacy is there to reach? Well, against all odds, they found one. A few of them, in fact!
Franchise regular Justin Lin has returned to the director’s chair… and also stepped into the writer’s room (along with Kin scribe Daniel Casey), replacing series spearhead Chris Morgan. Considering the banter between the characters is half the fun of these films, there’s a noticeable absence of charming and natural-sounding jabs within the dialogue. To make up for that, though, the melodrama has been given a nitrous injection, making things stuffed-crust-cheesy.
F9 also starts to chip away at the hardened coating of kayfabe surrounding the series, making the unfortunate mistake of trying to be self-referential.
And yet, all those deficits don’t even seem like deficits as part of the larger package. If anything, the jarring moments of lucidity and copious layers of forced emotionality just add to the entertainment value, albeit from the opposite direction. They add to the recurrent desire to giggle at just about everything on-screen, along with the overblown action scenes that’d make Shaggy 2 Dope’s head explode.
Fast & Furious 9: The Fast Saga shows the series still going strong in its impressively preposterous ways, to the point where even its own failings only make the whole mess that much more fun. It is popcorn cinema strapped to a rocket engine, and at this point, audiences have likely already decided whether they’re along for the ride or just rubbernecking from the sidelines. But for those still up for the head rush and subsequent delirious haze, F&F remains the undisputed king of the road.
