THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS is the eighth entry in the long going Fast and the Furious car series where it has street racing and car chases.  The newest film also known as FAST & FURIOUS 8 or F8 follows the common themes of family and retconning what came before.   Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) is blackmailed into betraying his crew by the deadly and beautiful cyber terrorist Cipher (Charlize Theron).  His crew including his wife Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) team up with Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), the mysterious government agency led by Kurt Russell’s character, and enemy Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) to find and stop Toretto from using the electromagnetic pulse weapon to cause something worse, but they soon learn Cipher has bigger plans which includes a rogue Russian sub base and nuclear missile codes.

 

THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS has some great action sequences and it is another fun sequel in the series even though I think the fifth and sixth installments were the high point of the series.   The street race in Cuba does have sexy beautiful girls along with a street race where Dom follows a code of honor which comes into play later on in the movie (you just have to wait and see how since I don’t want to spoil too many of the twists).   New flashy vehicles show up and even a skydiving rescue add to the number of things that happen in this movie as viewers wonder if Dom and Letty will have a family.  People do enjoy these movies and they keep getting made because the Fast and the furious movies make tons of money at the box office.  There are two new installments planned and a spin-off film.   If making films like THE FATE OF THE FUIROUS makes sure than Vin gets another Riddick movie out of the gate (I rather see another film with his anti-hero Riddick over Dom Toretto- no offense to fans of F&F films), I’m all for Vin Diesel making more of them as long the plots don’t get incredibly dumb and the fun action sequences stop.  F8 manages to blend fun, humor, danger, and action to make this movie an enjoyable popcorn movie experience.    I know the series can go on forever even though Universal Pictures would love for the series to go on as long as it makes money.  If you liked or loved the previous installments, go see THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS as soon as possible.

 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Two extended fight scenes that take place in the prison and the plane.

 

Several featurettes:

THE CUBAN SPIRIT- a featurette that goes behind-the-scenes of filming in Cuba for three weeks for the early scenes of the movie

 

IN THE FAMIL is a series of four character featurettes:

BETRAYING THE FAMILY: CIPHER AND DOM

LEADERLESS: A FAMILY LOST

SHAW FAMILY VALUES

MEET THE NOBODYS

 

CAR CULTURE- a series of three car related featurettes: THE HERO CARS OF FAST, ZOMBIE CARS (behind-the-scenes of the remotely controlled cars for one sequence in New York City), THE RIPSAW (the tank vehicle seen in the climax and how they got it from the US Department of Defense)

 

ALL ABOUT THE STUNTS focuses on behind-the-scenes of the three major car stunt sequences: MALECON STREET RACE, ICELAND STUNT DIARIES (and how te=hey needed ice engineers to make sure the ice lake was thick enough to hold the weight of vehicles racing across it), and THE STREETS OF NEW YORK (and difficulties they faced)

 

Feature audio commentary with director F. Gary Gary which is a leisurely chat about the various details of the movie and the story- only for diehard fans of the movie

 

There are two digital codes for the theatrical cut of the movie and the extended Director’s Cut which Universal has made the odd and frustrating choice of making it available via digital only because the DVD and the blu-ray only have the theatrical version of the movie.

 

Also included in the combo pack is the theatrical cut in standard definition on DVD.

 

FINAL ANALYSIS:  THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS is good for fans of the series and the featurettes are OK (despite Universal leaving the extended director’s cut off the blu-ray to have it as a digital only exclusive- bad move on hhome entertainment division's part).

 

This review is ©8-7-2017 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com

 

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