Back in the early days of the COVID pandemic, F9 was one of the first blockbusters to bump its release date, and now seems to have got the timing exactly right as it lands when theaters are reopening in the US and UK.
Returning director Justin Lin is one of countless names who endlessly cycle in and out of the now lengthy F&F series, and while none of the stars will have known they were making the film that welcomed society back to movie theaters, they’re clearly having the kind of awesome time we all need right now.
In this ninth installment of the automotive action-fest, Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez have retired to the farm from Avengers: Infinity War and are devoted to living off the grid with curly-haired Little Brian.
There’s a moment in Fast and Furious 9 when Chris “Ludacris” Bridges says, “As long as we obey the laws of physics, we’ll be fine.” What he neglects to mention is these are the laws of physics as laid down by Looney Tunes cartoons.
The action inflation across the series’ nine films means stunts that would have been showstoppers in earlier movies are casually dashed off left and right.
This constant cartoon nonsense is undoubtedly pretty wearing, but with so many people in the cast, there’s space to pump the brakes and just hang out with the familiar familia for a spell.
Meanwhile, Ludacris and Tyrese Gibson are by now well established as the comedy relief, so every now and again the film just stops to watch them goof off.
Their only gag that feels like it might have come from something resembling a script is a conversation about how the gang must be actually indestructible to survive so much insane stuff.
It’s a cliche at this point to boggle at how far these ridiculous action sequences have drifted from the relatively grounded first film — which was inspired by a true story! But F9 highlights that distance by introducing a prequel element showing the origin story of the Toretto family.
Unlike Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, whose appearance turbo-boosted the series onto a different track a few films back, Cena makes an underwhelming antagonist.