Fast and Furious 8 (12A.)
Directed by F. Gary Gray.
Starring, Vin Diesel, Charlize Theron, Duwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Helen Mirren, Nathalie Emmanuel, Elsa Pataky, Scott Eastwood and Kurt Russell. 136 mins
Are you still curious about the Furious? Probably, but this may well be the moment when that starts to wane. In the States F&F8 is known as The Fate of The Furious. Over here they've gone with prosaic numerals; presumably someone figured that the original title suggested a finality unbecoming in a series that has already, like German tourists laying out their towels on prime site hotel poolside sunloungers, claimed releases dates for F&Fs 9 & 10. It may also be due to that very British notion of bringing people down a peg or two, not letting them get ideas above their station. But F&F is all about people getting ideas above their station, a celebration of how madly improbable its own success is. But now that no longer feels like something worth celebrating. Instead of hippy hoppy, the soundtrack should be That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore by The Smiths.
The appeal of these films (at least in its F&F era as opposed to its The F & The F era) has been the cast and the stunts. The cast were always this ragtag bunch of losers and no hopers who got lucky. Being in the audience was like happening to be in the bar when a lottery winner announced the drinks were on them. You shared their joy, but at the same time got to look down on them because they still had to demean themselves making F&F. Now some propa actors have started poking their noses in and they spoil the fun; they are like grown ups trying to join in the party games and talking down to the children. Watching Helen Mirren play an old cockney mum going on about nice cuppas is meant to be all a right big larf, but it isn't, it feels very much like we're being mugged off.
It's also an issue that these film are like a Facebook page voracious gathering up Friends. Every film dredges up a few more cast members and it is now overstuffed with familiar faces turning up to do their bit. And none of them are much fun, not any more. Of all the cast, nobody has it worse than Rodriquez. The plot has her husband Dim Weasel being seduced away by evil Theron and turning against the family (but not really) and she is the one who has to pretend that there is some kind of emotional investment in these films, which really is demeaning.
Reviewing the previous installment I suggested that these were our equivalent of Roger Moore Bond films, but that encompasses a world of wildly varying quality. The best action sequences in this series are as outrageously fun as the motor boat chase in Live and Let Die or the Lotus Esprit car chase in The Spy Who Loved Me; the action sequences in 8 are ploddingly overblown like those in A View To A Kill. The film opens in Havana with a bit of street racing that is moderate entertaining. Weasel has to customise an old banger to a potentially explosive degree and to indicate the engine heating up we see the tubes with a red glow, much like the illustration of areas of pain in an advert for a sore throat remedy.
Justin Lin, who made parts 3-6, isn't much of a director but he can really shoot car chases. F. Gary (Straight Out Of Compton) Gray, Felix to his mother, has learnt to do the helicopter (or maybe drone) shots that sweep over a procession of moving cars but he fails to make the most of the action sequences. Statham has a sequence with a baby that is a poor shadow of one John Woo did in Hard Boiled 25 years ago, while the epic car chase across an ice field is vast and overblown yet somehow far less effective than the one that climaxed the Harry Palmer adventure Billion Dollar Brain, a film that is 50 years old. And was directed by Ken Russell. A lot of F&F is taken up with braggadocio and macho squaring up and in that spirit I'd like to suggest to Felix that as an action director he is a pussy, inferior to a poncy Limey who usually made films about fruity composers.
Overall the problem with the film is that it overdoes the stupid. There is a scene early on where Johnson is coaching his daughter’s soccer team and he has them doing a pre-match Hakka. In a comedy that would be a good funny scene, but F&F is meant to be lighthearted but not all out comedy and an anything-for-a-laugh approach kills most of your goodwill. These days just-turn-your-brain-off-for-a-couple-of-hours escapism doesn't look quite so much fun anymore, mostly because it doesn't seem like an escape form the real world, just more of the same. Maybe the New Escapism will be turn-your-brain-on-for-a-couple-of-hours. All this film has to offer is Stupid Is, As Stupid Drives. And that's all I have to say about that.
Directed by F. Gary Gray.
Starring, Vin Diesel, Charlize Theron, Duwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Helen Mirren, Nathalie Emmanuel, Elsa Pataky, Scott Eastwood and Kurt Russell. 136 mins
Are you still curious about the Furious? Probably, but this may well be the moment when that starts to wane. In the States F&F8 is known as The Fate of The Furious. Over here they've gone with prosaic numerals; presumably someone figured that the original title suggested a finality unbecoming in a series that has already, like German tourists laying out their towels on prime site hotel poolside sunloungers, claimed releases dates for F&Fs 9 & 10. It may also be due to that very British notion of bringing people down a peg or two, not letting them get ideas above their station. But F&F is all about people getting ideas above their station, a celebration of how madly improbable its own success is. But now that no longer feels like something worth celebrating. Instead of hippy hoppy, the soundtrack should be That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore by The Smiths.
The appeal of these films (at least in its F&F era as opposed to its The F & The F era) has been the cast and the stunts. The cast were always this ragtag bunch of losers and no hopers who got lucky. Being in the audience was like happening to be in the bar when a lottery winner announced the drinks were on them. You shared their joy, but at the same time got to look down on them because they still had to demean themselves making F&F. Now some propa actors have started poking their noses in and they spoil the fun; they are like grown ups trying to join in the party games and talking down to the children. Watching Helen Mirren play an old cockney mum going on about nice cuppas is meant to be all a right big larf, but it isn't, it feels very much like we're being mugged off.
It's also an issue that these film are like a Facebook page voracious gathering up Friends. Every film dredges up a few more cast members and it is now overstuffed with familiar faces turning up to do their bit. And none of them are much fun, not any more. Of all the cast, nobody has it worse than Rodriquez. The plot has her husband Dim Weasel being seduced away by evil Theron and turning against the family (but not really) and she is the one who has to pretend that there is some kind of emotional investment in these films, which really is demeaning.
Reviewing the previous installment I suggested that these were our equivalent of Roger Moore Bond films, but that encompasses a world of wildly varying quality. The best action sequences in this series are as outrageously fun as the motor boat chase in Live and Let Die or the Lotus Esprit car chase in The Spy Who Loved Me; the action sequences in 8 are ploddingly overblown like those in A View To A Kill. The film opens in Havana with a bit of street racing that is moderate entertaining. Weasel has to customise an old banger to a potentially explosive degree and to indicate the engine heating up we see the tubes with a red glow, much like the illustration of areas of pain in an advert for a sore throat remedy.
Justin Lin, who made parts 3-6, isn't much of a director but he can really shoot car chases. F. Gary (Straight Out Of Compton) Gray, Felix to his mother, has learnt to do the helicopter (or maybe drone) shots that sweep over a procession of moving cars but he fails to make the most of the action sequences. Statham has a sequence with a baby that is a poor shadow of one John Woo did in Hard Boiled 25 years ago, while the epic car chase across an ice field is vast and overblown yet somehow far less effective than the one that climaxed the Harry Palmer adventure Billion Dollar Brain, a film that is 50 years old. And was directed by Ken Russell. A lot of F&F is taken up with braggadocio and macho squaring up and in that spirit I'd like to suggest to Felix that as an action director he is a pussy, inferior to a poncy Limey who usually made films about fruity composers.
Overall the problem with the film is that it overdoes the stupid. There is a scene early on where Johnson is coaching his daughter’s soccer team and he has them doing a pre-match Hakka. In a comedy that would be a good funny scene, but F&F is meant to be lighthearted but not all out comedy and an anything-for-a-laugh approach kills most of your goodwill. These days just-turn-your-brain-off-for-a-couple-of-hours escapism doesn't look quite so much fun anymore, mostly because it doesn't seem like an escape form the real world, just more of the same. Maybe the New Escapism will be turn-your-brain-on-for-a-couple-of-hours. All this film has to offer is Stupid Is, As Stupid Drives. And that's all I have to say about that.
