The Fate of the Furious

An obvious improvement over the nigh unwatchable seventh installment, The Fate of the Furious follows series protagonist Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) as he’s blackmailed into betraying his various cohorts by Charlize Theron’s nefarious Cipher. Director F. Gary Gray does an effective job of immediately separating The Fate of the Furious from its overblown and over-the-top predecessor, as the movie opens with a refreshingly coherent (and fairly exciting) chase sequence set on the streets of Cuba – with the get-back-to-its-roots vibe perpetuated by a pared-down narrative that initially holds quite a bit of promise (ie the Dom-double-crosses-everyone angle is a good one). It’s disappointing (yet hardly surprising) to note, then, that the film segues into a wheel-spinning midsection that’s rife with overlong, padded-out sequences, and there’s little doubt that the normal-for-this-franchise running time of more than two hours is simply too much to sustain the far-from-epic storyline. Gray, at least, does an effective job of peppering the movie with a handful of engaging action set-pieces, including a thoroughly entertaining (and impressively inventive) car chase involving vehicles controlled remotely by Theron and her goons. (It’s distressing to note, on the other hand, that Gray completely bungles each and every hand-to-hand fight by blanketing such moments in shaky camerawork and quick-fire editing.) By the time the predictably larger-than-life climax rolls around, The Fate of the Furious has certainly confirmed its place as an almost-passable entry in this exceedingly underwhelming series and it is, in the end, impossible to walk away from the proceedings without wishing it had been substantially streamlined (ie it’s ultimately just too much movie, really).

** out of ****