The Fate of the Furious (2017)

Can the movie industry please stop putting all the jokes and surprises into the previews? I would have enjoyed F8 much more if I hadn’t seen so much of it already.

It was still a surprise to me, however, when the villain got away, because that sets up another whole movie, and I was expecting this to be the last one, on account of the rather final-sounding name. I’ve now realized they chose the name because this movie is the eighth, and “F8” sounds like “fate” in leetspeak or SMS shorthand or whatever. (Letters? Where we’re going, we don’t need letters!)

In the first act, the villain (a female super-hacker, yay) tries to make it sound like Dom isn’t really loyal to his team, he’s loyal to his sense of adventure, but that interesting ambiguity doesn’t last long. By the time we reach the climax, the villain is a boring cardboard cut-out who just  stands there desperately gnashing her teeth, ranting at underlings on a comm system, and jabbing buttons on a control panel. I felt sorry for her.

Still, the set pieces and humor were wonderful, and although the movie’s reveal during the resolution was pretty far-fetched, I still found it satisfying. The movie lacks plausibility and emotional depth, but it has lots of antics involving bald dudes and cars. Box office receipts indicate that this suffices.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/the-fate-of-the-furious/id1220995579