The Fate of the Furious * * *

"Ya sure you don't wanna reconsider that score Flip?"

     Apparently this film has taken more money in it’s opening weeks than any film in history. That doesn’t mean it’s grossed more than any other film - not by a long shot - it’s just had the most successful opening.  So I thought I’d go and find out why.

       It’s the eighth film in a franchise, so you should know what you’re in for long before you buy your ticket.  

      Basically they’re a bunch of car obsessed guys and girls who the law has to keep turning to for help, because they can get the job done so much better than the army or the police could.  Especially when it comes to dealing with a crazy Russian terrorist who looks like a supermodel and has unlimited arsenal and wants to take over the world.

       It's all about very fast cars, very hard punches, impossible stunts, very pretty girls, and very bad people who need to be taught a lesson.  It has dialogue that isn’t so much bad as dumbed down.  The way they act and  talk is like the dialogue that ten year old boys would use when they excitedly re-enact the scenes to each other later.

       None of this should surprise us and it’s probably not a legitimate reason to criticise it.  That’s what it sets out to do.  It knows it’s audience and it knows how to please them.   What I don’t understand is the mass appeal. It’s hard to imagine anyone past their mid-teens getting much satisfaction from this, unless you’re there just for the special effects and the cars, both of which are truly impressive.  

        Quite a few classic car gets a hammering - and a thousand regular cars are trashed.  They throw them out of buildings, create pile-ups fifty cars high, throw them into the ocean and drive them until they burst into flames.  

        After some impressive locations from Cuba to New York to Siberia, some amazing special effects, including a chase between cars on ice and a nuclear submarine below, the team end up having a nice lunch together, just like a normal gathering of friends and family.

        For a mentally stimulating film you can’t even give it a one star, but as a film that succeeds in doing what it set out to do, you’d have to give it five. So I’ll compromise.   Though I wouldn’t advise you to go see it unless you really want to or have to.