F9: The Fast Saga – Over the Top Fun
Director: Justin Lin
Writer: Justin Lin, Daniel Casey (Screenplay)
Starring: Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Nathalie Emmanuel, Charlize Theron, John Cena, Helen Mirren
Plot: Cipher enlists the help of Jakob, Dom’s younger brother to take revenge on Dom and his team.
Tagline – Fast Family Forever
Runtime: 2 Hours 25 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: F9: The Fast Saga starts when Dominic (Diesel) and his life of peace with Letty (Rodriguez) and little Brian gets an unexpected visit from Roman (Gibson), Tej (Ludacris) and Ramsey (Emmanuel). They need Dom to come and help them learn what happened to Mr Nobody, which will see them start a globe trotting adventure against Dom’s long lost brother Jakob (Cena) who has falling into the darkest side of how the world operates, as the crew must figure out how to save the world again.
Thoughts on F9: The Fast Saga
Characters & Performances – Dominic Toretto is trying to live the quiet life with his son until he learns his long lost brother has returned and he must return to try and stop him, while addressing what caused them to fall apart in the first place. We do get to dive into Dom’s past a lot more here, seeing what happened with his father before any events in the franchise, which is interesting to see. Vin Diesel does everything you would imagine from his performance without being at his best, often getting out performed by Vinnie Bennett playing the younger version of him. Jakob is the long-lost younger brother to Dom, he has become a rogue agent that is controlling the situation willing to hurt anyone that doesn’t agree with him. He does act like he is trying to prove Dom wrong rather than get his own plan put into action. John Cena does well with what he has to do here, even if the character is designed in a weaker manner. The usual crew all return with Tej and Roman showing all the banter, Ramsey gets a lot more to do, which is great, while Letty and Mia help guide Dom in the right direction.
Story – The story here follows Dom needing to put his life on the line to take on his long-lost brother who has turned into a rogue agent, which will see Dom looking into his past to take on the enemy closest to him, while the crew get a return of a favourite. This story is the best one based just on Dom, we learn a lot of his past, which could easily be the first chapter of a new set of films. When we dive into the past, we get back to the root of the street racing, which can help the fans of the original, while still have the wacky spy side to the story. The side stories will give us plenty of laughs, but certain reveals have been ruined in the trailers and certain other parts of the film seem to want to forget about Hobbs being around. This might well be a long movie, but it is fun to watch and you can have a lot of fun.
Themes – F9: The Fast Saga is an action adventure film that will look to bring us even more over top moments to be added to the franchise, but crucial it does give us moments of returning to the street race roots. The film takes us all over the world for different locations for the action to take place, with one location being the one everyone has been asking for.
Final Thoughts – F9: The Fast Saga is wacky action-adventure that continues to break physics, tries to return to the roots, but can fall short on the villain side of the film.
