F9 Review
After being delayed over a year, F9 the 10th movie in the 20 year old Fast and Furious movie has raced it’s way into theaters. I’ve finally seen my most anticipated movie of the year. Remember, I reviewed all of the Fast and Furious leading up to this release. Let’s get started!
The Good:
For me the best thing about this movie was that it delivered on what the trailers promised. What the trailers promised was this big dumb action movie with funny one liners, and you get plenty of that sprinkled in this movie. This might be the dumbest movie of the franchise, because of those crazy over the top stunts that they pull off in this movie. They even go to space in this movie, something that was shown in the trailers. And honestly, if this movie wasn’t big and dumb then it would come off as a disappointment. I go into these movies wanting it to be over the top in nature. This was a movie that had a big smile on my face from the beginning to the end. I had a blast watching this movie.
I mentioned earlier but the action in this movie is just so big and dumb. And this movie might have some of the best action of the entire franchise, just with the way that it’s done is so grand in nature. And it’s also some of the more brutal action of the franchise, characters smash frying pans into face, or throw people off of ledges. The stand-out action sequence would be the one in the very beginning where it’s this long epic car chase in the jungle.
It’s also a movie that is never boring, like I said I had a big smile on my face during this movie.
This could end up being the most fun movie of the year. There is an action sequence, joke, or something happening on screen to keep the audience invested during the runtime of the movie. With a run time of 2 hours and 25 minutes, I was worried that it would drag at points in time. It never once dragged on for me.
Another that really worked for this movie, is it was self-aware of the stupid nature of this franchise. Where they make jokes surrounding what the audience is thinking. Roman brings up the point that why haven’t none of them died due to insane missions they have been on, and that’s what the audience is thinking while watching this movie.
The big theme running through-out this franchise is family. And each movie finds a new way to have family be at the center of it. And with John Cena being introduced as Dom’s brother it adds this nice new way to explore family. Where it’s the most that we’ve seen of Dom’s backstory and his relationship with his dad. So when it focused on Dom’s backstory and family that stuff really worked for me.
Finally, the movie does a mid-credit scene and I really dug it. It really sets up Fast and Furious 10, and when I was done I told my mom “I want to see what happens next”.
The Bad:
First thing that comes to mind is Cipher. They brought her back from The Fate of the Furious. I just didn’t really care what they did with her. She’s important, but the amount of screen time that she has is pretty small. And tied to that, I didn’t like her haircut in this movie. It looked ridiculous, and it was distracting at points in time.
Also, I think this movie was hurt a little bit by not having stakes. Through-out the movie, I was thinking that a major character was about to die. So I wish this movie had a bit more stakes and tension to it.
Final Thoughts: F9 was my most anticipated movie of the year, and it lived up to my hype. I love this franchise, and this is easily one of the better movies of the franchise. It delivered on what the trailers promised with it’s big dumb action, and these over the top stunts that Dom and his crew have to pull off. The only issues with the movie are just knitpicks, but if you like this franchise. I highly recommend you see this movie.
The Score: 9.2/10 (A-)
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