Every other ongoing movie series is based on some kind of something: fantasy novels, comics, residual George Lucas wonder fumes, toys, the extremely dubious argument that there should be more than two Alien movies.
It’s been four years since The Fate of the Furious trapped Charlize Theron on an evil airplane, and two years since the spinoff Hobbs & Shaw let two middle-aged non-comedians riff about impregnating a frenemy’s little sister, ho ho ho.
Longtime Fast director Justin Lin departed with 2013’s Furious 6, which memorably re-killed Sung Kang’s laconic Han.
Suffice it to say, they really put the “lie” in “family.” In the present, the brothers battle across the globe.
Whenever they’re together, you remember the muscular craftsmanship Lin brought to his earlier Fast films. It’s an ever-so-slight grounding that let you believe in continent-long runways and crashing trucks flipping safely over human heads.
Paul Walker’s unfortunate death means Brian O’Conner is stuck at home with the kids, a workaround I choose to read as a profound call to action: This action dad takes parenting seriously, man! The female characters have more to do .
Fifteen years later, they’ve grown into… experimental vintage car scientists, if that’s a job? They’re paid to strap rockets onto things that don’t usually get strapped to rockets.
Why is it only a little fun? There are way too many magnets, which as a whole car-swooping conceit are only cool about 47 percent of the time.
I don’t want my heroes to do things because a generic espionage manager tells them what to do.
He’s trying to get out of his brother’s shadow; he seeks world domination because his world is so utterly Dom-inated.
There are a few scenes where Ramsey explains plot things with a giant computer; I swear I spotted a Super Mario Question Block on her big screen.
His work here steers the franchise in the right direction, but it’s not a complete fix.