The Fate of the Furious

The Fate of the Furious, which rhymes with Eight of the Furious. I see what they did there with Fate plus Eight equaling F8, but did you see what I did? The EIGHT of the Furious? Cause this is number eight of the Fast and Furious movies? Yeah, you get it!

 
The Fate of the Furious is quite Frankly the best car movie I’ve seen it my life. It puts the Carsploitation genre on another level. I mean, just when you thought The Fast and The Furious did everything with a car, they do something bigger and better.

 
If you’ve seen Furious 6 (Which you should) when Tej (Played by Ludacris) was like “hey guys, they have a tank”. He thought that was a big deal, that the bad guys are riding around in a tank. Now two Furiouses later, he has a tank, but the enemy now has a submarine! And it was bad ass!! ridiculously bad ass!!! it’s amazing how these movies raise the level of ridiculous and somehow not come across real stupid. I mean, they had Dwayne Johnson acting like he was literally made out of rock, with the feats of strength he pulled off. From tossing two bad guys into six with ease, to kicking missiles out the way, and no matter how stupid it got, I could not help but to love The Rock while he’s doing it (But you know, it’s The People’s movie Star).

 
But I have to be honest, if you are a diehard Fast and Furious fan (I don’t know if this name is official but I like to call myself a Furiouso). It’s not the best of the 8. Fast Five, Fast Six and Fast Seven all seemed to go up in quality as the action got bigger on the budget getting bigger, but with F8, it’s still a great flick, but the quality is not progressing.

I’m especially noticing  a dip in quality when it comes to the lesser stars. I know the Vin is the top dollar and lucky for Michelle Rodriguez, she plays Dom’s main squeeze Letty, putting her forefront in this story (And in this new wave of feminism, it would be a bad idea to have Rodriguez just sit there and look pretty, especially considering how…furious she’s been in the last few movies as a major ass kicker in the group). I also know The Rock is in the movie to put people in the seats, and considering how little time he had in the last film you wanted to give him more this time around.

But this did seem to lesson in my opinion the rest of the cast. In comparison  to the last three films it just seem like Tej and Roman are push further back as supporting characters. They seem so useful in Five, Six, and Seven, but in Eight not so much. This is especially messed up for new family member Ramsey, who went from being the core of the plot in Furious 7, and now seems so worthless (I mean, she can’t even drive her own car).

Ironic, their attempts to be loyal to Paul Walker who died during filming of Furious 7, yet his character is said to have just left the life of danger and excitement to be a family man, only makes you miss him and think where Bryan would fit into F8 (Most likely he would be where a new character played by Scott Eastwood would be).

 
However, the biggest issue most Furiousos may have is with the movie’s addition of Jason Statham’s character of Dekkard Shaw. Now don’t get me wrong, watching Jason Statham do his routine of half street brawler half Chinese acrobat is always a plus in any movie. Not to mention his love hate relationship with The Rock’s character, Luke Hobbs is this generation’s version of Rocky vs. Creed, but if they wanted him to join the Franchise they should have thought about that before they pinned him for killing Han a movie or two ago.

 
And that’s the true Fate of the Furious. Eight movies later I’ve become such a geek for the film franchise that the movie’s biggest downfall is the continuity error. Han was family, and Dekkard killed family, and now he’s technically fighting along side the family. Give the writers some credit, they came up with a good reason for Dekkard to be a part of Dom’s team (Without resurrecting Han like they did to Letty and explain how he survived a car set on fire…Like Letty did).

I also felt that Roman played by Tyrese was misused. No doubt he was funny. Great comedy relief as every time he was on the screen he had me cracking up, especially with his babble with new comer to the series Scott Eastwood who plays Kurt Russell’s Mr. Nobody’s uptight right hand, but this is a car movie and I felt the movie underplayed Roman’s skills behind the car (It did showcase Roman’s ability to wreck some beautiful cars, I think that’s within continuity).

Correct me if you think I’m wrong but I’ve always felt this was the ranking of the Furious:
Dom on top as alpha. This dude is worse than Kobe Bryant on the court. He drives to win and is willing to die to win. When Dom is in the car this guy is thinking out of the box making his car do shit it’s not supposed to.
Bryan is more tactical than Dom. He has that same think outside the box mindset but unfortunately Bryan seems not to have the death wish that allows him to break the laws of physics while driving. Plus, he drives an import so…
Then comes Letty. If there is a list of the world’s greatest street racers, Letty would be on the top of this list (Bryan and Dom don’t count cause they are really going beyond street racing). Letty knows how to drive the car like a driver (Not like she’s trying to be a superhero) you can’t beat her at a straight street race.
And last but not least is Roman. Whose like the Ali of street racing, in the sense that half his game is too sike out the other racers with his flamboyancy and Loudness. Though I’ve seen it in other movies that he has the potential go to the extreme with his car and think outside the box, let’s face it, no one loves life more than Roman, who does not understand why the fam keeps escalating from getaway drivers to Justice League in cars, but the real reason Roman is on the bottom of the list is simply that the three drivers ahead of him are three drivers whose head he can’t get into.
I would count Tej on the list but he’s more of the auto-tech guy who helps make the cars driven do the impossible (Although it does seem that he’s gotten over that wall crash he talked about in 2Fast 2Furious.)
But now that Bryan has parked his car, that should put Roman one step up, but I really feel that this movie proves that this ranking I have was just in my head as Roman only proves how good he was at making us laugh rather than how skilled a driver he was.
But despite me treating F8 like a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie (Which is what it has become. I mean literally, The Fast and The Furious are like the Avengers on Wheels now), it’s one of the best blockbusters of the year. It has all the bells and whistles needed to keep you cheering in your seat as you watch all the glorious action unfold.