F9 - New Release Review

I have a saying – the dumbest movies are often secretly the smartest ones. They have to maintain a prestige of non-prestige, while building in a constant arc that leaves audiences anticipating, while managing to distract from the lunacy of the plot with competent filmmaking and actually having some sort of impact or satisfaction at the end. Unfortunately, F9 thinks the opposite, that the dumbest movies are destined to be the dumbest, and that is why I just couldn’t enjoy this film.

So F9 has a plot of some kind, involving the old gang being called back to prevent the destruction of the world by Charlize Theron, the main character’s long-lost brother John Cena, and some Danish exchange student masquerading as a billionaire. There’s some device which I’m still not certain had an actual function, as well as mumblings about family and a bunch of explosions. So yeah, business as normal.

Fast and Furious has a certain wavelength, for people who love cartoonish action and random jokes without any stakes at all. That’s completely fine, but it requires a lot of effort on behalf of the filmmakers to really get most audiences invested and to actually have a good time. But Fast and Furious has gotten to the point where they really don’t have to try anymore, and F9 comes off especially lazy.

Also note the Beats by Dre product placement on Ludacris's ear, which is also shown in close-up detail in the film.

The thing that surprisingly disappointed me the most with this film was the action. One of the key tenets of action is that the screenplay is as important as the actions onscreen, as there needs to be a clear vision of what the action is going to be and how it’s going to be presented. Reading the screenplays for The Matrix or seeing how curated video game experiences like DOOM can be so effective is important for understanding how great action works, but F9 makes it up as it goes along.

The screenplay by Daniel Casey and Justin Lin has no build to the action, hitting the pedal to 11 from the very start so that the audience is all tuckered out 30 minutes it. The monotonous editing by 4 people, often cutting around the impact of difficult stunts and making every single thing seem ludicrously unsurvivable, combines with the lack of inventive or colourful cinematography to really neuter the impact of the experience as well. Director Lin, the sound designers and cinematographer Stephen F. Windon simply press the same “ludicrous survival” button 25 times until the audience just wants to sleep or leave. It’s not as terrible as some movies I’ve seen, but it could be so much better.

As the 9th main film in a series, it’s somewhat expected that you’d have some prior knowledge of the characters and arcs. Even with that, F9’s screenplay doesn’t make much effort to make interesting characters or plotlines, swinging along the most generic action plot imaginable with some truly dreadful character work. The villains, in particular, are utterly uninspired and uncharismatic, with the main Eurotrash businessman bad guy being absolutely laughable, and John Cena having nothing to do.

While the internal cast chemistry is strong, the individual characters are not at all engaging to watch. The drinking games from their dumb decisions would kill virile teenagers, and their utter disregard for their environment – cracking jokes while their actions kill hundreds of innocent people while they don’t call the military to actually handle the situation – makes them intolerable at points. And every joke they make either fails to land as there’s no real follow through or it’s some kind of stereotype (Tyrese makes a weird amount of race jokes throughout this franchise).

I should also mention how this movie has just been spoiled so intensely up to this point. All of the best moments of the film – the magnet car, the bridge stunt, the space mission and the return of Han – have all been spoiled last year when the first trailers dropped, and the cast casually spoiled the film on Instagram.

While not a direct criticism of the film, this speaks to a genuine lack of respect that the filmmakers have for their own material that they dilute it this way. I’m kind of offended by this, as it means that the studio will sacrifice their impact for the sake of buzz, and it seriously hurt the film in this case. I know that it will happen again and again, but I hope that it will never be as egregious as the case here.

Final thing – the filmmakers are keeping up the old trick of the good guy wearing white t-shirts and the bad guy wearing black t-shirts. Jesus.

F9 receives a sharp C-.

I would much rather recommend Pixar’s Luca on Disney+ if you want to watch something this weekend. It was a hell of a lot more charming than this.

Have you seen this film? If so, what did you think of it? Leave your answers in the comments below.