Fast & Furious 9

The Fast and Furious franchise has evolved in an interestingly bad way. While watching the previous episodes, I said many times "They can't be serious!" and was amused by how beautifully stupid it was. This time I said "They can't be serious!" several times, shaking my head, yawning and not understanding why this is such a soap opera and why even the action scenes are so boring. After the sixth episode, the worst entry in the franchise. (29/01/2023)

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. (16/06/2021)

The F&F franchise has one exceptional quality, and that is that it is capable of raising scenes to such heights of comicality with every episode that you wouldn't believe it. And Fast & Furious 9, from the very first minutes, is built up ad absurdum. Here we have, over and over again, flying cars, exploding cars, motorbikes, quad bikes and basically everything one can think of, technology that could not exist even in the best sci-fi movies, and on top of that his teletubbies crew, which is again the same cast, so at least I give extra points for that, because it has grown on me over the episodes. Plot-wise, though, it's still the same song. The same, unentertaining and as I mentioned here almost comical stuff. People flying through the air, a car getting intercepted by a fighter jet in flight and taking off with it, bad guys jumping from motorcycle to motorcycle, and cars driving on a vertically dropped rope bridge. Thank you, I don't want to. I was kind of naively hoping that in 8 episodes they would learn their lesson and, judging by the audience response, figure they could cut back a bit, but probably in vain. Audiences here go for action, but in the best case they will leave laughing and feeling that there are stupider people than them (=the creators), in the worst case they will turn it off after 20 minutes and pretend that this film never worked. Having John Cena in the cast might have already sounded the alarm that it's probably going to be a mess... 1 star for the "Dom and family" memes, which would never have happened without the movie. (01/08/2021)

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)

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)