The Fate of the Furious

The quality of the Fast and Furious movies can be assessed, for example, according to which you remember. The first one is memorable because it was relatively cheap, down-to-earth and original. Everyone remembers the fifth one because it brought a proper boost and a leap up in quality, plus a lot of great directorial ideas and audience draws (The Rock, etc.). The rest blends together with only the really great highlights being memorable, whether good or not. The eighth episode is no different and thus falls into the category of nothing exceptional. None of the action scenes are really climactic (CGI mess doesn't automatically mean awesome), Charlize Theron, Jason Statham and co. are fine, but with that kind of acting potential to piss on cars in two or three scenes, get run over by a submarine and that’s it? Where are the full contact fights like The Rock vs Diesel, or Rodriguez vs Carano? Those were the highlights in the action, this one has nothing of the sort. All the flashy gimmicks don't cover up the lack of creative ideas, and the 250 million dollar visuals aren't going to make this a macho action ride. The family feeling continues, okay, the main characters are old enough for that, but the best scenes are not the action ones, and that’s not quite okey. (2017-04-13)

Good for me. Surprisingly good, because they probably realized that what they are about to serve to the viewers cannot be sold with a serious face. So they focused more on humor, wisecracks, and irony. And it works. The over-the-top action is interspersed with moments where it is evident that everyone on set is actually having quite a bit of fun. In this eighth installment, they can do whatever they want, so they openly disregard rules, laws of physics, or logic. Vin Diesel, F. Gary Gray, and the whole gang simply received a bunch of money and had a blast like five-year-old boys whose parents built them a race track for the first time and now they can play... maybe Fast and Furious. Yeah, it's nonsense, but this time so sincerely exaggerated that it's impossible not to enjoy. And Jason Statham confirms here that it's a pity Hollywood discovered his comedic talent too late. I had a good time. (2017-05-15)

This series has become my heart's delight, and it's very likely that I won't rate any future installments differently than 100%. For me, this is just a fantastic group that I'm happy to return to. There are emotions in it, it's entertaining, and damn, it's awesome in terms of special effects. The action ideas are so wonderfully crazy that they make me purr with delight. (2017-04-24)

Fantastically filmed hogwash which I find incredibly entertaining. Great effects give even the most bizarre scenes a feeling of reality. Despite all of the crazy shit going down, the screenwriter manages to keep the story within firmly set bounds, and his imagination is admirable. Rock and Statham are delightful both with their cool lines and their friendly mockery of each other. Diesel is just classic. He made this movie for fun, earning some money at the same time. (2017-04-21)

It´s really sad when a similar essence of überblockbuster, which would like to rely on long excessive action-packed CGI escapades full of dozens of raining cars or nuclear submarines chasing the most luxurious sport cars on the planet, where perhaps two consecutive sequences cannot do without a Bay-scale explosion, only work during scenes where testosterone sparkles between Rock and Statham, where one or the other takes on the role of babysitter or women team coach, where Charlize and Kurt fully enjoy the guilty pleasure potential of their counterparts, etc. Thanks to making this movie move up to another level in term of everything (I was surprised it could be more absurd), this movie is the better one from the last two movie. But still, it has not found balance between various (what is missing are classic kicking someone´s ass moments which is a shame and it´s hard to believe with this cast) incomprehensible), team work and within the scope of a stylishly exaggerated blockbuster of the five. #family (2017-04-12)