Wednesday, June 30, 2021

'F9: THE FAST SAGA'......VIN THERE, DONE THAT....


 F9: The Fast Saga (2021)     How does anyone attempt a review of this movie?

              Seriously. How are we, an allegedly intelligent blogger, supposed to judge the artistic merit of a "Fast & Furious" movie?  

                This is like trying to write a coherent observation of a monster truck rally.....or a demolition derby.....or a rodeo.   Or maybe a fireworks display. 

                 Lots of loud noises. Gunfire. Explosions.  Car crashes. Truck crashes.  Punching. Kicking. More car crashes. 

                Lots of stuff gettin' blowed up...... gettin'.blowed up real good. 

               As in all modern action movies, laws of physics and gravity applied more like a guideline than a rule.......

                 And a car trip to outer space. 

                Now that we've given you a complete, comprehensive guide to the movie's content, let's move on to the actors. 

                 Vin Diesel.  Not much dialogue.....the very act of speaking seems to exhaust him, except to drawl out the word "family" almost stretched out to include an extra syllable.

                 John Cena......plays Vin's rogue brother. But if you can't see the plot twist coming from 200 miles away, you haven't watched enough 'Fast & Furious' movies. 

                  Paul Walker.....still dead, but lives an offscreen life in the franchise, which is starting to get borderline creepy. 

                   Charlize Theron.......back as the previous episode's villain, now encased in a clear transparent cell. But soon finds a way to think outside the box....literally.

                   But why go on?  Would anything we say either encourage anyone to rush out to a theater or prevent anyone from seeing this movie?   Hardly.

                     We'll say this much....."Fast & Furious 9: The Fast Saga" may serve as the best post-Pandemic movie to see in a theater right now. In its 2 hours and 25 minutes, it's a cartoon bubble of everything we longed for and missed when the multiplexes went dark.  As in, dark with no movies

                    A spectacle of calamitous sights and sounds.......you know, like a monster truck rally....or a demolition derby.....or a rodeo. Or a fireworks display.  No thought whatsoever required. Just spectating with appropriate "ooo"s and "aaahhh" s.

                   We came up with a simple standard to figure out a rating. Here goes:

                   Toward the end of the movie, Vin and company make use of massive electro-magnets to fling random objects at the villains.....mostly cars already in traffic, driven by innocent motorists.

                   If you're the type who'd find yourself thinking about the poor innocent souls inside those cars, who suddenly find themselves picked up and hurled into crushing oblivion in the service of the F9 crew, then the movie's a zero star (0) experience and you shouldn't go anywhere near it.

                   If, on the other hand, the sight of hapless people in cars deployed as grenades, boulders and speed bumps makes you chuckle in childish glee (letting out an a few "Woo-hoo!"s along the way), then F9's a 4 star (****) must see event.

                   Proceed accordingly.

                   

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