Fast and Furious 9: Blu Ray Review

There's no point expecting sense nor sensibility in the ever-continuing Fast and Furious franchise.

A turbo-charged series that has built its foundations on the tenets of family, fast cars, and outrageous stunts, each new entrant comes with an expectation of "bigger, more" and the latest installment more than delivers on audience expectations.

And yet, Fast 9, while offering some vicarious thrills and some well-executed chase sequences, lacks the emotional depth of other entrants into the series, and continues to somehow manage to lower the stakes by ensuring despite all the car-nage, explosions and car flips, not one single character is killed, or even slightly injured. 

Something which is joked about this time around in an apparently meta-conversation by Tyrese Gibson's Roman but which starts to feel like the writers don't have the bottle to kill off any of the leads, and despite all the peril, nobody is ever in any danger, thanks to the imminent possibility of resurrection throughout.

This time around, relying heavily on flashbacks to create a sins-of-the-father family backstory that never existed before, nor was hinted at, it's up to Vin Diesel's ever-emotionless and near-Jesus status character Dom Toretto to try and save the world when his turned-evil brother Jacob (John Cena, a relatively emotionless performance to match Diesel's) steals a MacGuffin that could give him the power to control all the global technology now and in the future.

Forced out of "retirement" on a farm, and with the words of Michelle Rodriguez's Letty that "this is not who we are" ringing in his ears, it's Toretto vs Toretto in a global car chase that spans several locations - some of which are better utilised than others. (A chase through Edinburgh is as thrilling and as daft as the series comes.)

In truth, over 145 minutes of bum-numbing belligerence and degrees of bloat, Fast and Furious 9 aka F9, is nothing but loud bluster that bludgeons you into submission with its silliness, stunts and its stars' commitment to it. 

While "family" is rolled out again and there are plenty of religious overtones throughout, the film's always set the gold standard for diversity amongst its cast, and does it again here, with the women more than playing their part, and in a refreshing continuation of its themes, needing no help from the men to get by. 

The back story sequences are nicely executed, and add in some colour to a story that was never there before, but ultimately, slows the pace of what's going on, and unfortunately adds in little given how weightless the current day shenanigans are.

Shoe-horning in logic-less use of electromagnets during chases and countless useless enemies who somehow never manage to land a shot on the gang detracts from there being any kind of stakes to this action - and subsequently, any real lack of consequence. This time around, characters return from the dead, others from spinoffs appear and the Fast & Furious cinematic universe expands with nary a thought for coherency or care while it pulls together threads from its own past.

Sure, it's noisy popcorn fodder of the highest fare, but this latest offers only hints of why the franchise has become so beloved; sure director Justin Lin knows how to execute a strong and seat-shifting action sequence, but with a mix of soulless CGI and a lack of real emotional depth, some stereotyped character dialogue and some run-of-the-mill threats, this Fast franchise looks to be Furiously trying to backpedal, and re-inject some course corrections on prior entrants.