The summer movie season finally started last weekend when A Quiet Place Part 2 and Cruella came out in theaters (Cruella, which is fantastic, was also released on Disney+). This is different than last year when the summer movie season didn't start until the end of August when Tenet was released in theaters. That was officially the beginning and end of the summer movie season of 2020, as Tenet was the only big budget film to be released in theaters last year. Most of the films coming out this summer are just ones postponed from last year, like Black Widow. And since A Quiet Place Part 2 made $50 million in its first weekend, things are almost back to normal (granted, if the pandemic didn't happen, A Quiet Place Part 2 probably would have made $150 million in its first weekend). The release schedule for every movie these days is kind of confusing, though. A Quiet Place Part 2 was postponed from March 2020 to September 2020 to Memorial Day 2021. One of the big guns of this summer, part 9 of The Fast & the Furious series, dumbly titled F9, was already released in Taiwan and China, though it won't hit the U.S. until June 25th for unknown reasons. It's already spawned controversy when star John Cena mentioned that Taiwan was one of the first countries to show the film. China doesn't recognize Taiwan as a country, though, and Hollywood needs China to keep their profit margins high, so John Cena awkwardly posted a video in Mandarin apologizing that he referred to Taiwan as a country. CM Punk, the former WWE wrestler, changed the byline on his Twitter account to simply read: Taiwan is a country.
Is it strange that there's controversy swirling around a dumb action movie? Yes. Did I mention yet that this Fast & Furious series has run out of ideas so that in this new one they go to space? Nope. Is Hollywood so void of creativity that they've made 8 sequels to a car chase movie? Yes. 10 if you count the Hobbs & Shaw spinoff. Or is that spinoff a part of the 9? I couldn't tell you, as this is the first F&F movie I've actually seen. I still have an idea of watching every F&F movie, one a day, and reviewing them, since I've never seen any of them until now. One of the reasons I never got around to doing that is the same reason I never watched any of them in the first place; they never looked any good. Did they get good reviews or just make money? Why are there 9 of these movies? What is the appeal?
F9 starts off with Vin Diesel living a normal, everyday, family life with a girlfriend and daughter in a house off the beaten path. He's given up the life of racing and action and violence. Didn't Rambo: First Blood Part 2 start off that way? With Stallone living as a monk in a monastery before he was sweet talked into rescuing hostages and blowing up Vietnam? So the F&F movies aren't exactly new or fresh in terms of plot. Of course Vin Diesel (who would probably be working at an Amazon fulfillment center these days if it wasn't for this series) ends up back in the fray when some bad guys threaten to blow up the world or something preposterous. The big bad in this ends up being John Cena, who's Vin Diesel's character's brother even though isn't Vin Diesel Puerto Rican and John Cena is just a white dude? But wait! John Cena's boss is the real big bad, Charlize Theron. Charlize Theron is such a bad ass that by the end of this movie she's piloting a drone that chases Vin Diesel and tries to blow him up.
I'm not sure about the other films in this series, but I'm guessing that the plot of these films are pretty much secondary to the action sequences and the laughs/wise cracks. Vin Diesel is a part of a rag tag gang of thugs that I guess work for the U.S. government? That's fairly vague, as Diesel and his crew are kind of like blue collar James Bond types...although I'm not sure why they're the ones saving the world. Why do they care? Are they getting paid for this?
The one good thing I can say about this film is the action scenes are fantastic. Most of them involve ridiculousness, like a car attached to a rope swinging across a ravine, or the ludicrousness of a car driving in space attempting to destroy a satellite. But the car chase sequences are a lot of fun. The one new idea they came up with in this film is a giant magnet that's inside a van. When Vin Diesel is driving the van and the bad guys are chasing him he simply turns on the magnet and suddenly cars and bikes are flying through the air towards the magnet creating mayhem and car wrecks and explosions. Director Justin Lin has concocted some very cool scenes involving this magnet, some of them seemingly filmed with actual flying cars smashing through glass and across real city streets.
The big finale involving an armored truck pummeling its way through the city and everyone trying to stop it is impressive and exciting. That it ends with Charlize Theron piloting a drone is a little silly and thus deflating, though it isn't too much of a problem as this film tries to excel in entertainment, not serious drama. Case in point: Helen Mirren involved in a high speed police chase for unknown reasons that don't entirely seem to link to the film's plot.
The summer popcorn films aren't exactly meant to be profound, they're supposed to be fun and enjoyed with a raucous, drunk, Friday night crowd cheering at the screen. And while this film is forgettable fluff, it's exactly the pure dose of dumb fun everyone wants this summer. **1/2
