If “F9” is your first encounter with the “Fast and Furious” franchise, you’ll wonder who all the cliché-spouting characters are.
If you’re one of the faithful, you’ll wish they had nametags.
Because it reaches for reasons to do outrageous stunts (“let’s go into space!”), it has to have a story of sorts to justify its not-so-subtle means. This time out, Dom (Vin Diesel) has a nemesis in his brother (John Cena) who, apparently, went bad after their dad died. In several flashbacks (which feature Diesel’s real-life son as the younger Dom), we get the back story and the reason they’re now at odds. Cena’s Jakob works for the son of a dictator (Thue Ersted Rasmussen) who wants two halves of an orb that will give him world dominance. Dom is pulled back in (yet again) to save the world and wreck a lot of cars.
To pull all that off, he reassembles the team (sound familiar?) and revisits characters who appeared in eight previous installments. It’s a class reunion of sorts but you wonder how Cardi B fits in and why it takes so long for Charlize Theron to flex her muscles.
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The point here – at least the one director Justin Lin tries to make – is family matters most. We got that eight previous times when the group had family style meals at the end of their adventures. But, here, it digs a little deeper and lets Diesel and Cena square off like they’re in a winner-take-all grudge match.
Bouncing from country to country (even spinning out over a cliff at one point), the team (Michelle Rodriguez, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Tyrese Gibson and Nathalie Emmanuel) uses all kinds of transportation to track down the baddies and thwart their evil plans. Magnets become a key player in this outing and, if you look closely, some of those high-tech toys are powered by switches that look like they came from the “Batman” TV series.
When Ludacris and Tyrese go into outer space (spoiler alert!), they’re duct-taped into their diving suits.
It’s all very simple, very laughable considering the odds. Still, Diesel plays this like great drama, steeling his jaw when necessary and invoking the memory of his dear friend Brian (Paul Walker) when a moment calls for tears.
Lin tees this up for a sequel, too (come on, there has to be an “F10”), and gives each of the characters a line that could find its way onto a T-shirt.
Because there isn’t time to explain who’s who, someone like Helen Mirren just hits and runs. She isn’t crucial to the film’s resolution, but she is like that old teacher who shows up at the class reunion and swears.
There’s fun here. It just never lasts longer than a pit stop. Lin oils this vehicle for maximum performance and tosses in the undercoating, even though it’s unnecessary.