The Fate of the Furious (2017)
Directed by F. Gary Gray
When a mysterious woman seduces Dom into the world of crime and a betrayal of those closest to him, the crew face trials that will test them as never before.
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What critics say influenced The Fate of the Furious
The best part of the film is the series' first foray into New York City, a jaw-dropping sequence in which seemingly every car in midtown Manhattan is hacked and taken over, forming a herd-like line that reminded me of the dogs chasing Nicolas Cage in Raising Arizona.
But careers make left turns (in this case, a misfiring sequel to Get Shorty), and it took the success of Straight Outta Compton to get Gray in, well, the driver's seat of this eighth installment of the stupendously successful cars-and-guns action franchise.
This eighth instalment of The Fast And The Furious franchise, directed by F Gary Gray (Straight Outta Compton), is reliable, containing plenty of deafening car pile-ups to keep the core audience satisfied while also stirring witty new flourishes into the old recipe.
A big part of the problem is that director F. Gary Gray (" Straight Outta Compton ," "The Italian Job") -- working from an agonizingly lazy script by Chris Morgan, who has had a hand in every "Fast" film dating to the third installment -- doesn't give the audience any help in suspending their disbelief.
But the director, F. Gary Gray (“Straight Outta Compton”), who has shown a propensity for action going back to “Set It Off” (1996) and “The Italian Job” (2003), now proves to be a high-flying ballistic wizard at it.
It also helps that director F. Gary Gray (Straight Outta Compton) is able to seamlessly join the fray, and he wisely avoids trying to change too much, incorporating the usual mass of gratuitously sexy, loud, explosive, and frankly absurd images into the film, while also re-grounding the emotion of the franchise after the understandably fervent Furious 7. Of course there are references to Paul Walker's Brian O'Conner, but they're not exploitative and actually help to add a vulnerability to proceedings.
Walker is no longer part of the ensemble, Straight Outta Compton’s F. Gary Gray takes over directing duties from James Wan (who took over from Justin Lin), and Charlize Theron and Scott Eastwood inject new dynamics into the mix.
That means it can’t help but feel like a little bit of a betrayal when the new film – The Fate of the Furious – expects us to believe that team leader Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) has betrayed everyone he knows and loves, and has joined forces with an international supervillain whose first crime appears to have been stealing Angelina Jolie’s hair from Gone in 60 Seconds.
Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson and Sienna Miller star in "The Lost City of Z."