Rent Fast and Furious 9 (2021)

Car crash of a film No 9 - Fast and Furious 9 review by Alphaville

It opens with a car crash followed by a cloying family scene. Yep, it’s the same old story. There’s a new mission afoot, but Vin doesn’t want to do it. Who’d have thought? But wait a minute – drum roll – he’s changed his mind! What a relief, otherwise there’d be no No. 9.

With plot and dialogue as pathetic as ever, FF through it all and cut to the car chases. The first is the best. Bog-standard crashes and explosions of course, but it’s filmed in Thailand with some sweeping drone shots and even a new stunt. Yay! The second chase is set in a mythical Hollywood version of Edinburgh that will at least amuse anyone who knows the city. The third and final chase is filmed in Georgia and is a real anti-climax. Everything in this film is by-the-numbers, but cut to the chases and you might grab half-an-hour of stupid fun.

Just gets worse - Fast and Furious 9 review by GB

If you're a huge fan of this franchise then my review won't alter your opinion that this is a masterpiece. If however, like me, you sit on the fringe and have enjoyed Fast 5 or Hobbs and Shaw then you'll probably sit in disbelief about just how stupid this film is.

The stunts have always been ridiculous, but this constant need to "out do" the last film means that stupidity has replaced any semblance of realism. There has also been a (very bad in my opinion) press towards CGI replacing real cars due to the extreme nonsense of the physics. This lean towards it means that the main driver (no pun intended) for watching the movie has become a completely and obviously fake environment. It renders driving scenes risk free and many scenes show actors in studios against green screen. One scene involving Diesel swinging his car on a pendulum from a destroyed bridge (whilst he "steers" whilst swinging) just made me wanna smash the TV with a sledgehammer.

Plot wise it's it's complete mess. I don't suppose we are expecting Citizen Kane levels of depth in a FF movie but this makes FF5 look like Oscar bait.

The other big problem is Diesel who is simply a very very bad actor. He has no screen presence anymore and simply wanders from scene to scene looking like he's constipated. The whole crowbarring in of conversations about "family" are just so clichéd these days they literally make you groan when you hear them. I read an interview where Diesel talked about how fans love the "mythology" of FF movies which tells you how far up his own backside he is. Mythology? Come on Vin you must be the only one using that word in relation to FF movies.

The introduction of Cena does not bring the same level of presence that Dwayne Johnson or Jason Statham did in earlier movies. Charlize Theron just looks embarrassed, and Helen Mirren as an "Octogenarian Drift Driver" is about as believable as a Roswell alien reading the news.

Absolute pile of tosh!

Death of a franchise - Fast and Furious 9 review by SH

This movie is just rubbish. It's not the movies we loved at the start of the franchise with lots of cars and street racing. It's just an bloated cgi mish mash of events edited into a movie.

Not worth my time.