Fast & Furious 9 2021 Movie Review
Director: Justin Lin
Writers: Daniel Casey, Justin Lin
Stars: Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster
With an overly complicated villain plan and a new piece of technology that necessitates Dom and his team’s specific skills for the job, F9’s story is just as overwrought as the previous Fast & Furious franchise entries. F9, like Fate and Fast 7, works best if the audience doesn’t try to understand or follow the plot too closely – it’s merely the vehicle (pun intended) that connects the numerous action scenes. It’s fully serviceable in that aspect.
In addition to the main plot, F9 delves into Dom and Jakob’s past via a line of flashbacks that focus on their father’s death during a race when they were both in their young ages. Their story is more predictable, with a predictable twist, but F9 leans into the heartfelt emotions while Diesel and Toretto add just the right amount of gruff charm to keep it from becoming overly cheesy. The family feud trope is an old one in film and tv, but F9 manages to make it work in a convincing manner, thanks in large part to the history of the franchise of being deeply rooted in family.
However, F9 is still an action-adventure film about fast automobiles, with lots of thrilling high-speed action moments. In typical Fast & Furious franchise form, F9 continues to break, if not totally, the principles of science, tossing them around to come up with new concepts for its chase scenes. The sequences of F9 feature landmine avoidance, powerful magnets capable of carrying automobiles, and travels to space. Plus, there’s a wonderful scene in which Helen Mirren’s Queenie Shaw finally gets to drive in a chase scene.
This and other moments combine to create an immensely enjoyable, if unbelievable, experience. Despite the fact that the themes in F9’s major third-act action scene are grander than in any other Fast & Furious picture, the action itself doesn’t feel as grand as previous parts. However, this isn’t strictly to the film’s fault because it allows the character storylines, notably those of Dom and Jakob, to take center stage. As a consequence, F9 achieves a wonderful blend of heart, comedy, and action, ensuring that the film does not seem like a superficial actioner while being original.
F9 is, after all, is a summer blockbuster – a huge, goofy entertaining popcorn movie – and Lin delivers precisely what’s anticipated in that regard. Around Fast Five and Fast & Furious 6, when Lin effectively stretched a buddy action series (that changed out its “buddies” a few times) into ensemble vehicles, the Fast & Furious franchise struck its groove. While subsequent films have failed to keep the same entertaining group dynamic and have replaced lost characters with greater action scenes, F9 is a comeback to form, with Lin at the wheel and deeper character tales throughout the film. It has all of the huge, entertaining action of the great Fast & Furious films, but it also has something deeper to guarantee that the foundation of F9 stays true to the franchise’s family premise.
As a result, F9 may be the ideal film to kick off the summer blockbuster season in 2021. Its action lends itself to being viewed on the large screen, therefore longtime fans of the franchise should see F9 in cinemas (where cinemas are open and providing viewers with a safe environment).
