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Written by: Daniel Casey & Justin Lin (screenplay by), Justin Lin & Alfredo Botello and Daniel Casey (story by), Gary Scott Thompson (based on characters created by)
Directed by: Justin Lin
Starring: Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges, Nathalie Emmanuel, Charlize Theron, John Cena, Sung Kang, Helen Mirren, Kurt Russell, Lucas Black, Shad Moss, Michael Rooker, Shea Whigham
Rated: PG-13
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Plot
Dom and the crew must take on an international terrorist who turns out to be Dom and Mia's estranged brother.
Verdict
The franchise's focus is cars and action, but this one tries to make a broader story. This certainly tries to outdo past movies, but it's just too long, muddled in backstory. Even the big action set pieces, while creative, overuse concepts and ideas. I don't expect a tight thriller logically reasoned, but there's a lot to this. Unfortunately not all of it is very compelling. Trimming this movie would certainly help. It just seems that all the money the franchise has made gave the creators the leeway to be more indulgent this time out.
Skip it.
Review
This franchise has so many movies. Don't worry the tenth installment is scheduled for 2023 with an eleventh movie to follow. The first will always be my favorite as it's a movie that really loved cars. The sequels quickly became bloated action movies that happen to include cars. Each new entry tries to outdo the previous.
This goes back to Dominic Toretto's (Vin Diesel) father racing stock cars. I know it was mentioned in the first movie, I don't know if it has been mentioned since. This secondary plot runs throughout this movie. This time around Dom's brother Jakob (John Cena) appears. This is the first mention of Dom even having a brother. That certainly makes the inclusion forced, and they look nothing like siblings. This sub-plot just adds run time to the movie while making it much more serious than it needs to be. How is this movie two and a half hours long? This sub-plot is a big reason with the silver cross necklace doing a lot of narrative work.
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| Vin Diesel, John Cena play Dominic Toretto and Jakob Toretto |
It's crazy that Dom's crew are on-call to thwart terrorists. They started out as street racers. Dom initially refuses to help, but then takes the job just for the drama. The crew heads to Central America. This movie is ridiculous, but the land mines are inventive. This franchise is built on ridiculous action sequences. We certainly see some of that here, with the bridge jump being the best example in this movie.
The antagonist is Dom's brother Jakob. We get a lot of backstory for that, but this movie would have been better served to just make him another random terrorist. The movie even includes a throwaway line about John Cena's Nordic chin to explain why he looks nothing like Dom. I don't know why this bothers. The movie puts a lot of effort into this sibling rivalry. The running gag in these movies has been Dom's focus on family. This undoes that with a brother Dom exiled and never mentioned.
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| Shad Moss, Tyrese Gibson, Lucas Black, Ludacris play Twinkie, Roman, Sean, Tej |
I wish the movie would focus on ridiculous action. There are a few scenes where Roman (Tyrese Gibson) ponders to Tej (Chris 'Ludacris' Briges) and Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) about the logic of the movie franchise and how he and the crew must be invincible to survive what we've seen in the movies. It's just a meta joke, but more entertaining than brother Jakob. In recent movies the crew defend against a terrorist set to take over the world. In this one it's just sibling rivalry. A franchise that has been light and action packed, is much heavier this time around.
This spreads the story thin with everyone doing their own thing while making sure characters from all the movies appear. Roman and Tej bring back Sean (Lucas Black) and Twinkie (Shad Moss), last seen in Tokyo Drift. Mia (Jordana Brewster) and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) track Han (Sung Kang). Dom is beefing with his brother. With so much happening, this feels unfocused. The movies are always a bit mindless, but this wants to do too much.
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| Tej and Roman travel into space driving a Pontiac Fiero |
I said years ago this movie series would keep getting bigger and at some point would have to go to space. That happens now with Roman and Tej leaving the planet driving a Pontiac Fiero. Talk about ridiculous physics. That sequence shows the movie is aware of how it's perceived. That's the run in to the final sequence that is just madness. That's what these movie typically do well, over the top action. In this one that action is mired with unnecessary backstory.
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