F9: THE FAST SAGA (2021)

F9: THE FAST SAGA (2021)

Tagline: Not All Blood Is Family.

(Action, Thriller, Disregard For The Laws Of Physics) [PG-13]

Note: There is a director’s cut of this, but it’s only a total of 7 minutes longer, so I can’t speak to whether or not it solves any issues this one has. The first installment in the series came out 20 years ago. It’s older than the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

Okay, listen up! I want 50 of the best men! I want guns! I want wheels, freaking X-wing fighters-- I don't care! The Millennium Falcon, Chewbacca if you can get ahold of him. Money's no object. Go.

In this one, we meet Dom and Mia's estranged brother via a series of flashbacks that show us how Dom and his brother Jakob (played by John Cena best known for THE SUICIDE SQUAD) get separated in life. We also find out why Dom never really brings him up. Dom (played by Vin Diesel who is actually best known for this movie series and getting under Dwayne Johnson’skin) and Letty are raising Dom’s son and living a quiet life when they get called into action once again to deal with a weapon that can potentially control the world’s tech.  Of course, his freakin brother Jakob is tied to all of it. Can Dom and his usual suspects break just enough laws and cause enough property damage to save the world? 

First off, if you mistakenly watched any movie in this entire series and thought you were getting something even remotely close to realistic. That’s too bad. You probably focused on that incredibly obvious flaw (that this movie even pokes fun at) and automatically dismissed this thing as “sucking”. 

Well, let’s get into this. I am going to say that after a fairly short intro this movie does not take long to blast into high-gear action sequences. However, after about the first 23 minutes or so, there is just a lot of talking and not much going on aside from getting Dom and his brother’s background story. It’s actually not that interesting and sandwiched between giant action sequences, the middle hour and 15 minutes or so is just really bland. 

Fortunately in the last 45 minutes or so, this film gets over the top bonkers, and pretty much everything plot-wise or writing-wise or anything even remotely making sense is tossed out the window. It’s balls to the wall glorious. Yes, I just wrote that. This movie reminds me of flicks that came out back in the ’80s where any kind of plot or physics were just getting in the way of one-liners and massive battles without getting a scratch. I love it. This is an absolute popcorn flick with very likable characters.

Acting-wise this one is loaded with people you know if you watch a lot of movies. Probably the biggest star is Charlize Theron who returns as Cipher in this (she was also in THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS). We also get a small dose of Kurt Russell in flashbacks as Mr. Nobody.  Michelle Rodriguez returns as Letty and we also get several other characters back from previous films in the series. I didn’t have any issues with the performances, they were all pretty solid. The writing itself is almost public TV bad though. I am not going to try and say we had a story that made any sense at all. 

When it comes to coolness, this thing pulls all the stops and that is all I really walked into expecting. I have to give this one a 5 out of 7 on my scale of awesome. On most people’s is probably closer to a 4 out of 7 or even for some people a 3 if you were looking for something coherent. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF ONE RACE FILMS AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

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