For starters, let me explain my thoughts on the franchise as a whole. I don't want to come off as whiny or give the impression I frown upon the entire series. My favorite Fast movies are the original, Fast Five, and Furious 7, the latter being where the series should have ended, in my opinion. I do get some enjoyment out of 4 (2009) and 2 Fast 2 Furious, as well. Things started going downhill for me a little bit with the last one... but Fast 9 just plummets straight off a clip and all the way to the bottom.
I won't get too much into the lack of logic and physics... although its many unrealistic action sequences are problematic, I feel it's one of the more obvious flaws of the film and so I won't rant about that too much.
But one thing that really does bother me, is how contrived this movie is. Nothing about the plot / story (what little bit of plot we get, anyway) is in any way, shape or form, convincing. Everything feels so shoe-horned in just so we can get the crew back together for some crazy action sequences that end up being quite dull for how mind-numbingly outrageous they are.
A few examples of these forced plot points are... having Dom's "brother" come back after never hearing him mentioned once in the previous 8 films...? Let's also consider that Dom is known as the "family man" and to try to convince us viewers that now all of a sudden... just nope. Not working for me.
Han's "death" and resurrection... nope, not buying that one either.
Mia gets involved in the action because of Jacob, her and Dom's brother... Right. Makes it even more believable that Brian would stay home. Not. (His character is of course, kept alive within the universe) Those are some of the more obvious examples, but there a ton others I won't get into.
Another thing that really grinds my gears (pun intended) is that the characters have all lost their personalities. They've all become caricatures of what they once were. No more growth or character development. No more story arcs for them. The dialogue is nothing but one liners and comedic relief.
It's also hard to feel any attachment to any of these characters when they are essentially invincible. Oh, and they joke about it in the movie as well. Oh, don't get me started on the bits of "meta" the movie takes on. It tries to be funny by being a bit self-aware of how ridiculous it all is and it's not funny... at all.
Another thing that pissed me off. There's no authentic Fast and Furious traits to this movie. Not a single street race, excluding a brief flashback. Wtf?
I'm not one to say that they were only good when they were about street racing. I kind of even disagree with that crowd... they've always had elements of crime / drama / action. Fast Five is probably my favorite of the franchise. But those movies also were much more grounded to reality and had the trademarks of the franchise including good soundtracks and awesome racing sequences. This movie literally had neither of those things. Instead, the sole focus of this film is ridiculous action sequence after ridiculous action sequence... followed by a brief, "touching" moment of emotional dialogue between a couple of the "characters", only to be interrupted by another mind-boggling unrealistic scenario with even more unrealistic outcomes.
*Sigh* I could keep going, but I'll cut it short here. In summary, this is not only my least favorite of the franchise, I believe that this is the first truly bad film of the series. One of the worst movies I've seen in a long time, possibly ever. A disgrace.
The only reason I'm giving it 2 stars instead of 1 is because it was... watchable... somewhat. 1 star movies are reserved for those that are so bad that it takes every ounce of willpower to even sit through it. This one didn't quite reach those levels but came close.
Sorry. I love the Fast And Furious franchise, but this movie sucked.
I won't get too much into the lack of logic and physics... although its many unrealistic action sequences are problematic, I feel it's one of the more obvious flaws of the film and so I won't rant about that too much.
But one thing that really does bother me, is how contrived this movie is. Nothing about the plot / story (what little bit of plot we get, anyway) is in any way, shape or form, convincing. Everything feels so shoe-horned in just so we can get the crew back together for some crazy action sequences that end up being quite dull for how mind-numbingly outrageous they are.
A few examples of these forced plot points are... having Dom's "brother" come back after never hearing him mentioned once in the previous 8 films...? Let's also consider that Dom is known as the "family man" and to try to convince us viewers that now all of a sudden... just nope. Not working for me.
Han's "death" and resurrection... nope, not buying that one either.
Mia gets involved in the action because of Jacob, her and Dom's brother... Right. Makes it even more believable that Brian would stay home. Not. (His character is of course, kept alive within the universe) Those are some of the more obvious examples, but there a ton others I won't get into.
Another thing that really grinds my gears (pun intended) is that the characters have all lost their personalities. They've all become caricatures of what they once were. No more growth or character development. No more story arcs for them. The dialogue is nothing but one liners and comedic relief.
It's also hard to feel any attachment to any of these characters when they are essentially invincible. Oh, and they joke about it in the movie as well. Oh, don't get me started on the bits of "meta" the movie takes on. It tries to be funny by being a bit self-aware of how ridiculous it all is and it's not funny... at all.
Another thing that pissed me off. There's no authentic Fast and Furious traits to this movie. Not a single street race, excluding a brief flashback. Wtf?
I'm not one to say that they were only good when they were about street racing. I kind of even disagree with that crowd... they've always had elements of crime / drama / action. Fast Five is probably my favorite of the franchise. But those movies also were much more grounded to reality and had the trademarks of the franchise including good soundtracks and awesome racing sequences. This movie literally had neither of those things. Instead, the sole focus of this film is ridiculous action sequence after ridiculous action sequence... followed by a brief, "touching" moment of emotional dialogue between a couple of the "characters", only to be interrupted by another mind-boggling unrealistic scenario with even more unrealistic outcomes.
*Sigh* I could keep going, but I'll cut it short here. In summary, this is not only my least favorite of the franchise, I believe that this is the first truly bad film of the series. One of the worst movies I've seen in a long time, possibly ever. A disgrace.
The only reason I'm giving it 2 stars instead of 1 is because it was... watchable... somewhat. 1 star movies are reserved for those that are so bad that it takes every ounce of willpower to even sit through it. This one didn't quite reach those levels but came close.
Sorry. I love the Fast And Furious franchise, but this movie sucked.
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