Fast & Furious 9

In these times of 'black darkness' I was excited about Vin Diesel, he seemed like a cool action guy and I was looking forward to his next films. But today, with Diesel's ego swollen to the size of his calf's neck, I'm just bored. And if I had a nickel for every time this film breaks the laws of physics, or they say "brother", "sister", "father", "mother" or "family", I'd buy an island in the Caribbean. Or a flat in Prague. (31.07.2021)

Fast and Furious is a really interesting franchise that divides people into maybe three camps. The first group stopped watching after episodes 3 or 4, the second group started watching after episode 5 (for example me), and the third group watched the whole thing and either enjoy it or hate it as much as possible. I personally don't care much for cars, so I wasn't interested in the first episodes and only started to care when The Rock and other cast members came on the scene and, instead of racing, it went to over the top action and I have to say that I managed to enjoy all the episodes from 5 onwards. They're silly and fun movies with action I probably wouldn't see anywhere else and they have featured a lot of well known martial arts stars, so I definitely can't complain about that. I was curious about the 9th episode and it's without a doubt the weakest since the 5th. I feel like there's less of everything than I'm used to. For one thing, The Rock and Jason Statham are missing, and their absence is very noticeable. They’ve added John Cena and he is surprisingly the best thing about the whole movie, but it's not enough. Roman makes jokes less than usual, there are few personal fights, and even the over-the-top action is less for my taste (the truck caught my attention). On the other hand, the journey into space is uninteresting. There are no interesting locations, even the pretty women are gone, and there's more bullshit about family than in maybe three episodes combined. At least the music is still good, it brought some decent summer songs. I wasn't bored, it went relatively well, but it's a quality downgrade even for people who liked the previous episodes. Story 2/5, Action 3/5, Humor 3/5, Violence NO, Fun 4/5 Music 4/5, Visuals 4/5, Atmosphere 2/5, Suspense 2/5 5.5/10. (03.07.2021)

Dumb action movies like The Fast and the Furious work with a simple rule: there has to be enough interesting things going on in them that you has no reason to dwell on how much they don't make sense, how many laws of physics are broken, and how bullshit it all is. The ninth installment of this car franchise didn't do it. Justin Lin's direction is surprisingly boring and unimaginative, and his action sequences are a level worse than what he showed in the earlier films or what his colleagues came up with later. Yeah, it's always banging, crashing into things, falling from somewhere, driving fast and shifting gears even faster, but compared to previous installments, there's just nothing here that makes you go "wow, this was so cool, I don't care that Vin Diesel can't act and doesn't have a neck." On top of that, sadly, all the fun characters that were capable of keeping up with Diesel and settling him down have disappeared, so now there's just him as an alpha-male and buffoons running around, whose original job was to be comedy reliefs and now they're trying in vain to look like heroes. Honestly, is there anyone who realistically cares anything about the characters of Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris or Nathalie Emmanuel? Diesel is on his own. John Cena's serious acting is utterly mismanaged, Charlize Theron has more or less a bigger cameo, and the whole thing drags on from nowhere to nowhere, and even the best action scenes, the most you can say is "OK, but you did so much better last time." Fast and the Furious 9 is probably just as stupid as the previous installments, it's just much more obvious thanks to the lackluster action and unimaginative direction. And much more of a chore to finish. (17.06.2021)

The last episode of this series has to reveal that all this is happening in virtual reality or as the fantasy of a crippled racer, otherwise I don’t know how else to explain these crazy antics defying the laws of physics. Toretto is washing his dirty laundry in public with the result you might expect. The absence of Brian is explained by some huge lie about him and the kids being in a safe place (being dead means you’re safe now?); we get cars flying through space and, yes, electromagnets too. P.S.: Cena made leaps and bounds in his career this year, but his Peacemaker yesterday was much more powerful. (06.08.2021)

I seriously thought that creative happiness would end here. That it simply wouldn't be possible to jump so many sharks in order for the action-packed and family-oriented elements to fit together this time. But they fit. Though the opening chase scene needs to be watched with increased tolerance and the complete finale is a somewhat puffed-up spitting in the face of the haters, the rest almost enchanted me. The thousand times chewed-over phrases work in Vin Diesel's performance this time as well and the combination with John Cena as the Terminator really hit the mark. Memories of the twenty-year-old original, a brief visit to a forgotten sliding off-ramp, emotional winks at characters who are no longer in the plot – it all works. For die-hard fans, this (hopefully) is a fireworks display of joy. A cheesier mood than ever before, but the same level of popcorn adrenaline applies. (01.07.2021)