Fast & Furious 9

Nine films in, speed, brawn and exotica are still the order of the day – in a juggernaut that could do with a trim.

There comes a point in every franchise when the seemingly impossible has to be explained. Either that, or the filmmaker just gets on with the task at hand and lets the audience suspend its disbelief. Obviously, following the phenomenal – and mounting – popularity of the brand, the ninth chapter had to somehow exceed the excesses of the last (global box-office: $1,236,005,118). But, just as the James Bond series went overboard with Moonraker, so F9 shoots itself in the foot with its latest instalment. When “I don’t believe it!” and “You gotta be kidding me!” become the default gasps, you know you’re in trouble.

Fast & Furious 9 also suffers at the hand of prequelitis as a whole new backstory is crowbarred into the mythology of the Toretto team. The franchise is never better than when it’s fast and furious and here the narrative padding – unlike the slimline principals – slows down the whole behemoth. So just as Luke Evans’ brother turned out to be Jason Statham, so Dom (Vin Diesel) and Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster) turn out to have a black sheep in the family.  And with Dwayne Johnson no longer in the picture, who is better endowed to make Vin Diesel look like a toothpick than 16-time world WWE champ John Cena? John Cena is bigger, brawnier and badder than Vin Diesel and is out to conquer the world by harnessing the internet for his own nefarious means. Of course, there is nothing cinematically fresh about Cena’s egregious goal but the scripters have furnished enough talk of binary systems and rogue satellites to make it sound marginally novel.

When the film dispenses with its swathes of explanation (and incessant talk of family values), a series of gut-spinning set pieces provide the adrenalin rush that audiences have paid to see. There’s a manic dash over a crumbling rope bridge, a high-speed vertical slide performed by an armoured articulated truck and one eye-popping stunt performed by Vin Diesel that prompts Mrs Toretto (Michelle Rodriguez) to marvel, “Well, that was new” – just so we know we haven’t seen that before. The best scene, though, features the Essex-born Nathalie Emmanuel as Ramsey, the fiercely bright hacktivist learning to drive in the narrow streets of Edinburgh while demolishing much of the Scottish capital. It’s a relief, then, that so many of the thoroughfares seem surprisingly denuded of traffic. There’s also a cheeky cameo from Helen Mirren (speeding around various London landmarks in bizarre geographical order), a resurrection or two (no spoilers here), along with desktop wallpaper vistas of Central America, the Caspian Sea, Thailand, Tokyo, Copenhagen, Edinburgh and Tbilisi. There’s fun, too, with electromagnets, the usual vehicular carnage and one sequence so out-of-this-world that it would be churlish to divulge it. Likewise, the hierarchy of villainy is well-played, with a suitably supercilious Charlize Theron as the cyberterrorist Cipher – imprisoned in a glass cage – who seems to be pulling everybody’s chain. Even so, the film would have worked perfectly well with twenty minutes shaved off its running time and the repeated demise of its characters given less emphasis.

JAMES CAMERON-WILSON

Cast: Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges, John Cena, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jordana Brewster, Sung Kang, Michael Rooker, Helen Mirren, Kurt Russell, Charlize Theron, Finn Cole, Thue Ersted Rasmussen, Anna Sawai, J.D. Pardo, Cardi B, Lucas Black, Bow Wow, Jason Tobin, Don Omar, Shea Whigham, Vinnie Bennett, Jim Parrack, Isaac Holdane, Immanuel Holdane, Gal Gadot, Jason Statham.

Dir Justin Lin, Pro Neal H. Moritz, Vin Diesel, Jeff Kirschenbaum, Joe Roth, Justin Lin, Clayton Townsend and Samantha Vincent, Screenplay Daniel Casey and Justin Lin, Ph Stephen F. Windsor, Pro Des Jan Roelfs, Ed Greg D'Auria, Dylan Highsmith and Kelly Matsumoto, Music Brian Tyler, Costumes Sanja Milkovic Hays, Sound Eliot Connors, Tattoo design Lee Gren.

One Race Films/Original Film/Roth/Kirschenbaum Films/Perfect Storm Entertainment-Universal Pictures.
143 mins. USA. 2021. Rel: 24 June 2021. Cert. 12A.