In late April, Vin Diesel triumphantly reemerged into public life with a video PSA-that has since been parodied on Saturday Night Live-declaring it was time for audiences to return to the MOOVIES. Mr. Diesel wasn't suggesting that people go see A Quiet Place Part II, Cruella or any of the other titles that were tasked with kicking off this unconventional 2021 summer movie season, he was angling for people to make F9 their first trip back to theaters since the pandemic started. If you happened to be one of the folks that listened to the sage wisdom of Dominic Toretto and made the ninth installment of the Fast and Furious franchise your big screen comeback trip, you were treated to another round of the rousing over-the-top spectacle that this series so proudly revels in.
Positioning F9 as the first true blockbuster in a summer slate that's being handed the difficult task of attempting to re-ignite public interest in theatrical moviegoing is really a genius move by Universal and Hollywood as a whole. With its rabid fanbase, massive scale that is optimized by the top shelf audio/video setup that theaters provide and over-the-top setpieces that are capable of birthing a really infectious energy when experienced with a large, engaged crowd, F9 checks every box a studio would want while they're pumping up the value of the theatrical experience. So, does F9 continue the franchise's proud legacy of being the biggest and baddest brand in the world of maximalist action movies? That's a silly question, of course it does!
F9 welcomes back franchise veteran Justin Lin to the director's chair for the first time since Fast and Furious 6 and that extended time away didn't dull any of his sensibilities. He doesn't take for granted that there are dozens of established directors that would kill to have this big of a sandbox to play around in and Lin beautifully conveys that uninhabited freedom by placing a sense of wide-eyed joy into every car chase, fist fight or whatever new piece of groundbreaking insanity they've cooked up. Getting to make a movie where high-powered magnets, jumping cars off cliffs and space expeditions that don't involve NASA are part of an average day of production is a gig that no one else in the business has and Lin seems like he's going to relish that good fortune until this franchise reaches its end.
While its pleasures remain as fun and creative as ever, there are a couple of elephants in the room that need to be addressed that prevent F9 from hitting the level of excellence they've achieved and maintained since Fast Five. For starters, there's a Rock-sized hole in the dynamic of the "family" that is impossible to overlook. Dwayne Johnson's introduction to this series was a huge reason why it was able to blossom into a kick ass, globe-trotting action franchise. The machine still may be able to run fine without him (the goofy Ludacris/Tyrese dynamic and Sung Kang's long-awaited return as Han are largely responsible for making that happen), but Johnson's charisma and comedic timing is the brand of oil that keeps the engine humming at peak performance and it's not exactly difficult to notice when it's been swapped out for something that's functional yet clearly not as good as what you've been using for the past decade (John Cena as Dom's estranged "evil" brother).
Then there's the much more subtle, but equally important departure of screenwriter Chris Morgan. Morgan had been responsible for the script of every single film from Tokyo Drift through Hobbs & Shaw-which means that he's been the unsung architect behind the franchise's upward trajectory in terms of both quality and popularity. Although Lin's contributions to the script prevent it from completely losing its long-established DNA, Morgan's primary replacement Daniel Casey (Kin) doesn't have the same finesse when it comes to navigating the tricky-ish tonal balance the previous installments aced. The shameless melodrama/self-aware stupidity pendulum often swings too far in the former direction-particularly in the less action-driven middle section of the film, and deciding to spend so much energy diving into the soapy family drama shit between the Toretto brothers puts a pretty sizable dent into the franchise's usually electric pacing. If the upcoming final installments are going to completely stick the landing, both Johnson and Morgan are going to have return to their esteemed positions on this NOS-powered pirate ship.
F9 may be the least electrifying installment of the series since 2009's Fast and Furious, but it still manages to deliver more than enough of that signature F and F entertaining absurdity to work. This franchise has set an extremely high bar for itself and since there's only a couple of small tweaks required to get it back to that place, the family could very well be flying high again on their next deadly high stakes mission.
Grade: B+
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