|
Banned
|
Wow. Where do I start...
Saw this on Saturday evening with the wife, the two of us being formidable fans of this franchise even from before we met each other; we still hold to the belief that the first film is the very best and exudes a kind of aura that was simply not able to be replaced in any of the subsequent sequels -- and taking the God-awful John Singleton sequel and odd-duck Tokyo entry out of the equation, the way in which Universal took this franchise in a sort of "comic book superhero teamup/Bond spy adventure" direction seemed interesting...to a point.
I believe that point was reached, and possibly surpassed, in the last film, Furious 7 -- to me, the franchise had already come off the proverbial rails at that point (I still believe the sixth film was a better entry, pound for pound, what with that awesome hand-to-hand fight sequence at the end between Shaw and his men and Dom and Hobbs). But in getting back to the original film for a moment...based on an editorial titled Racer X, director Rob Cohen crafted a perfect snapshot of the import racing scene in L.A., what with the sexy, barely-dressed girls, candy-colored souped-up Civics and Accords and uber-cheesy dialogue to go along with it all. There was something that was magic about the first film that just couldn't be replicated in seven films following it -- it was about the poontang, the cars and the street culture. I STILL love revisiting it on standard DVD, with its awesome, house-breaking DTS 5.1 track and beautiful anamorphic widescreen transfer...
Forget Singleton's dumb, neon-drenched sequel, which served no purpose other than to introduce us to Walker's character's friend Pearce (Tyrese Gibson) and Tej Parker (Ludacris) and which suffered from the absence of Diesel; Eva Mendes was a stunning piece of ass in it, true, and Cole Hauser's character did exhibit some menace, but the film was an overall joke from start to finish -- the stupid street races that were set up, the laughable Asian chick character with her pink neon all over her Honda, Ludacris' afro...do I need to go on? Forget Tokyo Drift, too...
Once much of the original cast was reunited in the fourth film, the series was back on track (it's often discovered by filmmakers that most franchises won't work without bringing back the original actors, a la Jason Bourne and Terminator: Genisys), but the biggest problem I had with the seventh film in particular was the way they completely underused Jason Statham's character -- let me get this off my chest right now: I'm a HUGE Statham fan, and have been following his work since the days of John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars. I think he is a TERRIBLY underrated raw action star, and if the rumors about him possibly playing Bond in a future 007 film have any validity, I'd be a happy camper (though he would have to work on that thick Cockney-esque accent). When it was revealed that Deckard Shaw was the one behind Han's death during the post-credits sequence in the sixth film, I was so giddy in the theater that my wife thought something was wrong with me.
Alas, when Furious 7 rolled around and I thought we were going to have a genuine badass rival for the "all-unstoppable" Toretto to face, I was gravely disappointed -- here was an opportunity for Universal and the franchise's filmmakers to make Statham's Shaw a kind of "Bane" villain to Hobbs' and Toretto's "hero" characters (i.e. unstoppable and too strong), but what ended up happening was that Shaw was reduced to a menacing yet quickly-overtaken rival for both Hobbs and Toretto. Sure, that first fight sequence with Statham and Johnson at Hobbs' L.A. office was exciting and nail-biting, what with Shaw's wise-mouthed replies as he hacks into Dobbs' computer and Dobbs responding with equal street-level verbal threats like only "The Rock" could (to be honest, I LOVED Dwayne Johnson a lot more when he played his "Brahma Bull" character in the WWE; his "macho antics" are becoming a bit ridiculous now)...but the fight was over way too quickly and Hobbs, IMO, should never have been able to get the upper hand in any way against this ex-British commando specialist with nearly unlimited strength (a GREAT role for Statham, and one he fits into perfectly) -- and Shaw should never have been in a position where he was relegated to using an explosive just to end a fight like he did.
What I would have done, if I were in charge of the project, was have Statham's Shaw being so powerful to take on, only Dom and Hobbs would be able to take him down together. I mean, the way Shaw was portrayed in that post-credits sequence in the sixth film, one would think he was the most terrifying menace anyone had ever faced -- INCLUDING Hobbs and Toretto, two badasses who had apparently faced everything already.
That brings me to the final Dom/Deckard brawl that everyone was waiting for and which the last two films were hinting at -- absolutely ridiculous IMO that the Toretto character manhandled Statham's Shaw like he did during that fight on the parking lot rooftop. Sure, Statham got in some smashes of his steel rods against Toretto's back and such, but for the most part Toretto threw him around like a limp rag doll -- NOT REALISTIC at all. I suspect this has something to do with Diesel producing these films now, and that his character MUST be the alpha male-driven lead at all times, even if General Zod dropped down from Krypton and took him on. I was gravely disappointed in how Statham's Shaw was utilized in Furious 7.
Then, there's the ridiculous amount of times -- as everyone has mentioned -- Shaw shows up in the film, looking for Dom, when Kurt Russell's "Mr. Nobody" (also stupid) claimed the "God's Eye" device was really the only way to find Shaw. Don't get me started on the whole Arabian prince party thing when they drive the million-dollar-plus car through the buildings (though, in the plus column, the fight between Michelle Rodriguez's Letty and Ronda Rousey was cool).
Okay, so that brings us to the new entry. As part seven hints at, Shaw is still alive after his brawl with Toretto and has been locked in a maximum security prison, threatening to, of course, break out. As I said earlier, I was beginning to dig the direction they were taking this franchise at one point, almost like a superhero team facing global adversaries and such, but if Furious 7 was the film that really took the series off the rails, The Fate of the Furious makes it go even wilder, suggesting plot points that don't even make sense at certain times.
The film opens with, here we go again, Toretto in some sun-drenched part of the world (in this case Cuba), speaking the native tongue (a given, right?) and looking all buff and unstoppable as usual. Him and Letty are celebrating their honeymoon, which is cut short when Dom's cousin shows up, owing his car to some local badass who races really strange-looking old vehicles on the island (remind you of the first film and the Jesse character?). Don't get me started on the impossible physics suggested by this film when Dom "fixes" the kid's shitbox of a car to "go turbo" with some "Cuban NOS"...before driving the car backwards with little to no gear under the "hood" in a race with the guy his cousin owes. (And, of course, this scene is absolutely loaded with the prerequisite elements for this franchise: Ridiculously scantily-clad beauties with bodies to kill for, grinding against one another as they drool over the idiots who race these cars and the main hot chick who begins the race with a barely-there miniskirt on and seemingly no panties, seductively waving the checkered flag...not that I'm complaining about that...)
You know who wins, don't you? From there, the honeymoon gets worse, with Dom being blackmailed by the sexy Charlize Theron's character, who forces Dom to do a job for her based on a threat that we aren't immediately let in on. The premise ends up being, and this isn't giving many spoilers away, that Hobbs and Toretto's "crew" (now complete with the spy chick from the sixth film that they rescue and which Tej and Roman are ga-ga over) must seemingly stop Toretto, who has apparently turned on them and gone rogue, working for Theron's highly-trained team. Apparently, Theron's Cipher character has a connection to the events of the past couple of films (the way Spectre did in the Bond franchise), which was a cool twist, but unfortunately there are so many plot gaps at play, most of the good elements of this entry are overshadowed.
The best moments of the film come when Johnson's Hobbs character gets sent to the same max prison facility Statham's Shaw is in, based on something he wasn't really responsible for, and the two of them mouth off to one another from their respective cells, threatening a fist fight of unbelievable proportions if they ever get face-to-face again; once there's a jailbreak attempt, both Hobbs and Shaw break bones and beat up prisoners to make their way to an escape, making for a wildly entertaining action sequence. That's all I'll say about that before I give too much away...
Ultimately, Mr. Nobody assembles Dom's crew plus Shaw to find Toretto and Cipher and stop them from whatever it is Cipher is after -- a great many twists come in-between, including a main character's child he never knew he had, the parent of two characters who seemed like a perfect fit here and the return of a character we all thought was out of commission. Here's the problem I had with Fate of the Furious: I don't know if this is what the director of Straight Outta Compton was going for, but they made many of the rival characters too "buddy-buddy" -- suddenly, Hobbs and Shaw are joking around even in the midst of threatening each other with body blows? Shaw cracks jokes aboard Cipher's advanced plane as he takes out dozens of commandos with one hand while carrying a baby in a holster in the other? All of a sudden everyone is working as a happy family together by the end?
In the plus column, it was nice to see the action of this franchise switch to New York City for a good chunk of the running time, providing a vivid contrast from the usual streets of L.A. (there were rumors of a Fast & The Furious entry taking place on the streets of New York, showcasing Queens' street racing scene, but it never happened), but to be honest I don't really know where else this series can go; it is suggested that a key character is still alive at the end of this, hinting at yet another sequel (I think I read somewhere that a ninth and 10th film have been greenlighted; heaven help us) and I hope and pray Universal doesn't decide to do a REBOOT of this franchise, starting it all over again (they just did a reboot of the Mummy remake). There's also the possibility that yet another character that was once an enemy will join Dom's crew as a friend, to take on yet another adversary...
To be honest, I'm exhausted from all these already; the first film was great in its own cheesy, horrible dialogued way, but the franchise is already off the rails at this point. I think I'm getting too old for the over-the-top male testosterone-fueled macho shit exuded by the Diesel and Johnson characters in these films, along with the confounding mystery surrounding why the planet's sexiest women prefer to dress in their sexiest best just to grind against one another to music blaring out of some neon-pink Honda S2000 owned by some punk.
Fate of the Furious was an entertaining evening out in the theater, but we are considering whether it's gonna be a Blu-ray buy or not.
Some side notes: As this franchise progressed and I have collected each on Blu-ray (well, ever since the fourth film; I own the original on standard DVD and refuse to buy the second or third), I've noticed a mysterious drop in audio quality in particular with regard to the soundtracks -- the last film, Furious 7, didn't sound all that great in DTS-HD MA 7.1 on my setup, lacking the kind of raw, immersive soundscape a film like this should exude in spades. To be perfectly honest, I think the first film's LOSSY DTS 5.1 track is more visceral, aggressive and enjoyable than any of the lossless tracks on the Blu-rays of the many sequels; of course, this is subjective, but I am pointing it out because I wonder if the eighth entry will sound good on Blu.
Last edited by IntelliVolume; 04-17-2017 at 11:18 PM.
|
All countries
Argentina
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Bulgaria
Chile
China
Colombia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Estonia
Denmark
Finland
Greece
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
Indonesia
Ireland
Israel
India
Latvia
Lithuania
Malaysia
New Zealand
Norway
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Singapore
South Africa
South Korea
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
Turkey
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
The Fate of the Furious 4K UHD (2017)
Linear Mode
