MOVIE REVIEW – It’s been a long time since the Fast&Furious saga abandoned street racing. True blockbusters with excessive ambitions since the 4th episode, the films released since then look more like Marvel than underground motorized entertainment. Unsurprisingly, F9 remains in this vein.

The script of this final opus does not fly high. It just serves as an excuse for Dom and his crew to roam the globe and show their bravery. The group led by Vin Diesel learns of a secret weapon that is broken down into two parts. By combining them, they obtain a secret signal that allows them to control all the computers in the world. And mind you, not just devices connected to the internet, no, “all devices based on 1’s and 0’s” as Ramsey, the hacker played by Nathalie Emmanuel, aptly puts it.

As always, the plot carries us along, provided we unplug our brains for a while, but for the time being, this is largely thanks to the antagonists. On the face of it, no government is after the device, so the main person involved is the son of an Eastern European dictator named Otto (Thue Ersted Rasmussen) who wants to steal the machine to usurp his father, and the world in the process. To this end, he hires Jakob Toretto (Dom’s brother), who has gone bad following a tragic event. Combined with Charlize Theron’s very sensual performance, the villain’s father issues form a sort of disturbing Oedipal triangle…

Stupid script

The script of this final opus does not fly high. It just serves as an excuse for Dom and his crew to roam the globe and show their bravery. The group led by Vin Diesel learns of a secret weapon that is broken down into two parts. By combining them, they obtain a secret signal that allows them to control all the computers in the world. And mind you, not just devices connected to the internet, no, “all devices based on 1’s and 0’s” as Ramsey, the hacker played by Nathalie Emmanuel, aptly puts it.

As always, the plot carries us along, provided we unplug our brains for a while, but for the time being, this is largely thanks to the antagonists. On the face of it, no government is after the device, so the main person involved is the son of an Eastern European dictator named Otto (Thue Ersted Rasmussen) who wants to steal the machine to usurp his father, and the world in the process. To this end, he hires Jakob Toretto (Dom’s brother), who has gone bad following a tragic event. Combined with Charlize Theron’s very sensual performance, the villain’s father issues form a sort of disturbing Oedipal triangle…

The usual good guys

But as entertaining as they are, these antagonists don’t occupy the screen enough, leaving room for Dominic Toretto and the usual “good guys” (RIP Paul Walker). And as always, Vin Diesel is Vin Diesel, while his wife (Michell Rodriguez) and sister (Jordana Brewster) bring an emotional nuance to the film’s intensity. Nevertheless, the poor script hinders the immersion…

If only the cars were moving at 250 km/h, it would be fine, but the pace of the story is also brain-breaking. We barely have time to enjoy one scene before we are already frantically moving on to the next. I couldn’t notice anything during the first 45 minutes of the film!

A production with so much action needs at times to calm down and give the viewer time to breathe. At 145 minutes, the film is simply too long.

Not even a proper “film”

Fast and Furious should be seen more like a series of breathtaking scenes than as a film. And in that respect, the film delivers. Dom and his team drive through a minefield while being chased by helicopters and heavy vehicles, a rocket explodes an old Pontiac and the bad guys manage to empty a hundred magazines without hurting a single civilian, hats off to them.

However, despite their grandiloquence, the action scenes lack something. The almost divine luck of the protagonists removes any weight from the extremely dangerous situations they regularly find themselves in. The thin thread of credibility that remains in this universe is completely lost in these passages…

Although impressive, the film lacks a bit of suspense and a script worthy of its time. In short, if the part of your brain in charge of logic needs a little holiday, then Fast 9 will suit you, even if you might still find it a little too long.

-Zardoz-