Fast & Furious 9 (2021) Review

After a really long delay, the time has finally come for the new Fast & Furious film to hit cinemas and today I saw the 9th film in the main franchise and here is my review for it. The premise of the film sees the crew bought back into the action when Dom's brother Jakob comes after them hunting for a device to take over. 

Main Character

Vin diesel has become the poster child for the fast and furious and it feels like he could play Dom Toretto in his sleep and he does that here. He is functional but uninspiring, it feels like he sleepwalks through the film, just doing about enough but not pushing himself at all to raise his standards and that is kind of how this whole film feels and he is a large part of that. 

Supporting Characters

The cast look like they are having some fun with the roles, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster & Nathalie Emmanuel are all decent in their roles and provide some exciting and fun moments. Even though its a small role one of the best parts of the film is seeing Charlize Theron back as Cipher and Theron does a great job and it makes me wish she was a larger part of this film. Ludacris and Tyrese Gibson are back in their roles and there are occasional funny banter between the two but they just became to much for me and transitioned from entertaining and funny and became truly annoying. John Cena plays Jakob and they really tried to make me care about his character but it just didn't really work, the flashbacks try but he is just a bland villain and does nothing to stand out. The issue is that Cipher is in the background and it makes me wish she had been the main villain of the film instead of Jakob which is a large issue. Sung Kang makes his big return as Han and it let me down, all these years there has been this campaign for him to be bought back and the way they explain that doesn't really make sense and Han is such a small part of the film that it makes you wonder why they even bothered with it. 

Story 

The story doesn't work, Fast and Furious has always struggled with its plot but this is one of the weakest yet. There are the flashbacks that try and build the relationship between Dom and Jakob but it doesn't work and I think that is because the film gets bogged down with too much going on. Over the years the franchise has become more and more absurd with this one being the most crazy to date and it just doesn't work at all. Bringing Han back and the absurd maguffin device that is there just to drive the plot forward back just feels really contrived with a generic ending that feels like it truly lacks effort. 

Script

The script is also pretty bad but it really knows it and plays it up. Some of the humour had me chuckling for sure and when on screen the flashbacks do bring some heart, but it is just not enough. Overall, the drama falls flat and the humour becomes so contrived and basically addresses the stupidity of the whole franchise which doesn't work as well as some other films have done before.

Style 

It is crazy to see how the Fast and Furious franchise started and how it looks now. Cars explode and things explode everywhere, the film doesn't obey the laws of physics and is just there to see absurd action scenes that sees people survive things that they should never ever survive. But there comes a time when those things don't matter because none of the characters seem to be in any real danger so it is just explosions for the sake of explosions. Also the film is way too long, it is nearly 2 and a half hours and it has no right to be that way at all. 

Overall

Overall, Fast and Furious 9 is a below average film. It seems like this franchise is hitting the end of the road and Fast 9 is just a film where things explode and not much else so give this one a skip unless you are a huge fan of the franchise. 

Rating - 4/10