Fate of the Furious Review

     Fate of the Furious is the newest and eighth installment in the Fast & Furious franchise and while these movies have certainly had their good and bad moments the recent films have been enjoyable, popcorn flicks. Since the soft-reboot with Fast Five the franchise has greatly embraced the silliness and over the top action that comes with the movies. Although Fate of the Furious is not the prime model as to what these films have brought to the table thus far, it is still an entertaining, popcorn flick that delivers in some areas.
     When Dom Torreto (Vin Diesel) mysterious goes rogue thanks to the influence of cyber terrorist, Cipher (Charlize Theron), the team must assemble to hunt down Dom and find out why he's exhibiting this bizarre behavior. Assembling a team is not as easy as it seems when former enemy Deckard (Jason Statham) joins the picture. They must do whatever they can to figure out a solution and hunt down Dom.

     The biggest question going forward for me was how would the team chemistry be without the late, great Paul Walker. While the old cast seemed to continue with the chemistry we saw from the previous films, it was not as easy for some of the newcomers. Scott Eastwood plays government agent under the alias of Little Nobody. Although I do not whole heartedly blame the Eastwood for the portrayal, his comedic timing did not seem to really fit like the rest of the group. This can not all be Eastwood's fault though because the script he was dishing from was not necessarily the best. I realize you're not expecting an Oscar caliber script with this franchise but these films have always had good humor. Unfortunately that was not a strong suit for the latest installment.
     The standout performances in this movie comes from Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Jason Statham. These have a fantastic dynamic and pretty much steal the show. All the rest of the performances are about what you would expect with this franchise but those two really go another level from everyone else.

     Much like the other films, the action pieces are directed quite well. F. Gray Gray brings in an unique direction with flying cars and grappling hooks which works a lot better in action then it sounds on paper. All the action scenes in this are very well crafted and will get a few laughs with audiences because of how much this movie embraces the cheesiness.
     This movie has a runtime of 2 hours and 16 minutes but the pacing is actually quite good. It never feels drawn out or repeated. Although this film's humor is not quite as good as previous and the team chemistry is 100% effective, the film is still a pleasant joy ride.

Rating: 6.1 out of 10