Fast & Furious 8
Certificate: 12A
Running Time: 136 minutes
Director: F. Gary Gray
Cast: Vin Diesel, Charlize Theron, Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges, Nathalie Emmanuel, Kurt Russell, Helen Mirren, Scott Eastwood.
(Movie House Cinemas Screening)
Synopsis
When a mysterious woman seduces Dom into the world of terrorism and a betrayal of those closest to him, the crew face trials that will test them as never before.
“I will beat you like a Cherokee drum!”
Review
The story begins with the fast life of Dominic Toretto thrust upon the screen, as we see him living it up in Cuba with his wife Letty and most importantly being around the thing he loves most: cars! It doesn’t take long for a street race to unfold as a duel between Dom and I quote “the fastest racer in all Havana” take us across the beauty of the city and ending in none other but a massive explosion. From the word go, the film does not disappoint in setting out any expectation going forward.
Track forward as we catch up with DSS Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), who is understandably one of the comedy aspects of the film, coaching his daughter’s soccer team to cleverly incorporate the Haka as a fear tactic against the opposing team. He is enlisted to ‘collect’ a device from a source in Berlin and needs the help of the gang, including Dom who at this point has changed guard and gone rouge.
The film provides you with an array of emotion mostly laughter and embarrassment during some of the most ridiculous parts of the movie, there is a scene involving a baby and Jason Statham’s Deckard which springs to mind but one of the most surprising factors within the film is Charlize’s portrayal of supervillain Cipher.
When we are first introduced to her character, I couldn’t quite take her seriously mainly because of the dreadlocks and surfer girl attire. As soon as she drops the act and we find out that she is more of an activist, her true form appears and a raging psychopath reveals itself.
Each good villain must have gadgets, a cool wardrobe and a conniving stare but above all henchman and in this case Cipher has Rhodes played by Kristofer Hivju of Game of Thrones fame.
Cipher is the main driving force of tension throughout the movie as she always seems to be a step ahead of the gang and makes good use of Dom whenever she can, to manipulate the furious clan at every angle into giving up the game.
Fast & Furious 8 sees the return of regular characters including Tej (Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges), Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), Ramsay (Nathalie Emmanuel) and Roman (Tyrese Gibson) to name a few. It’s great fun to watch how these characters bounce off one another and particularly how Tyrese’s character acts with the rest of the troupe. He remains the wacky, wise cracking one-liner enthusiast who may be in it for the cars but will go running for the hills once someone begins shooting missiles at him and he’s not wrong.
We also see the return Mr Nobody (Kurt Russell), the leader of a covert ops team, with his newest recruit called Lil Nobody or Eric Reisner (Scott Eastwood). The introduction of the Mr Nobody character almost has an Avengers vibe to it with some similarities that can be seen between his character and Nick Fury’s, particularly when he uses a variety of ways and means to gather the gang together.
Throughout the movie, we still see and hear reference to Brian O’Connor (Paul Walker), an ex-member of the team, who sadly passed away in real life in 2013. He played such a huge part in the Fast & Furious franchise and it’s nice to see that the series continues to honour his work wherever they can particularly toward the end of the movie, as Dom honours his legacy the best way that he can.
Verdict
In my opinion the Fast & Furious 8 is an action packed, high energy, NOS-fest which I believe a lot of people will enjoy and will do incredibly well at the box-office as previous instalments have. If you have the intention that you will come away from the movie, having it answered all the questions of life you would be better off watching something else.
