After launching with The Fast and the Furious in 2001, the car-focused action-adventure film series arguably took a couple of sequels before it truly found its footing as a franchise, but it certainly did - to the tune of over $5 billion worldwide box office gross for the series - and now the ninth installment is hitting theaters this summer with F9. Justin Lin returns to direct the movie after helming Tokyo Drift, Fast & Furious, Fast Five and Fast & Furious 6, working from a script he co-wrote with Daniel Casey (Kin). Continuing the story of Vin Diesel's Dominic Toretto, the ninth Fast & Furious movie sees him forced to confront his past when his estranged younger brother Jakob (John Cena) resurfaces. F9 returns to the heights of Lin's best Fast & Furious franchise films, combining big heart and bigger action while deepening its themes of family.
After the events of The Fate of the Furious, Dom and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) have essentially retired from their lives of crime and covert ops. But when Mr. Nobody's (Kurt Russell) plane is attacked and a new dangerous weapon is stolen, they're pulled back into the fray to help their friends Roman Pearce (Tyrese Gibson), Tej Parker (Chris "Ludacris" Bridges) and Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) to recover it. Things are made more complicated when Dom learns his younger brother Jakob is working with his old enemy Cypher (Charlize Theron) to assemble the weapon. Because of the family connection, Dom brings in his sister Mia (Jordana Brewster). The group is also reunited with Han Lue (Sung Kang), who they believed to be dead, but who actually holds the key to their mission. With Dom's estranged brother at the heart of the problem their team is facing, he'll be forced to confront the decisions that led him to banish Jakob from the Toretto family and ensure those choices don't put his new family in jeopardy.
In terms of F9's story, it's just as overwrought as the other recent Fast & Furious franchise entries, with an overly complicated villain plan and a new piece of technology that necessitates Dom and his team's specific skills for the job. Like Fate and Fast 7, F9 works better if the viewer doesn't try to make sense of, or really follow, the plot too closely - it's simply the vehicle (pun intended) that loosely ties the various action scenes together. In that regard, it's perfectly serviceable. To complement the main plot, F9 also explores Dom and Jakob's history through a series of flashbacks that expand on the death of their father during a race when they were both young. Their story is much more predictable, with a twist that's easy to see coming, but F9 leans into the heartfelt emotions while Diesel and Toretto bring the right amount of gruff charm so it doesn't become overly cheesy. The sibling rivalry trope is an old one in film and television, and F9 manages to pull it off in a compelling way, due in large part to the film capitalizing on the franchise's history already being deeply entrenched in family.
F9 is still an action-adventure movie about fast cars, though, and it delivers plenty of exhilarating high-speed action sequences. In true Fast & Furious franchise fashion, F9 continues to, if not entirely, flout the rules of science, playing fast and loose with them in order to bring some fresh ideas to its chase scenes. Landmine dodging, magnets strong enough to carry cars and trips to space are all included within the sequences of F9. Plus, there's a positively delightful sequence that finally gets Helen Mirren's Queenie Shaw in the driver's seat of a chase scene. That and other sequences make for an extremely fun, albeit completely unbelievable, experience. Still, while the ideas in F9's big third-act action scene are bigger than any other Fast & Furious movie, the sequence itself doesn't feel quite as epic as past films. It's not necessarily to the detriment of the movie, though, as it allows the character stories, particularly those of Dom and Jakob, to come to the forefront. As a result, F9 strikes a nice balance between heart, humor and action that ensures the movie doesn't feel like a shallow actioner while still feeling fresh.
Ultimately, F9 is meant to be a summer blockbuster - a popcorn movie that's big, silly fun and in that sense, Lin delivers exactly what's expected. The Fast & Furious franchise truly hit its stride around Fast Five and Fast & Furious 6, when Lin effectively took a buddy action series (that swapped out its "buddies" a few times) and expanded its entries into ensemble vehicles. While the more recent movies may have struggled to maintain that same fun group dynamic, and supplanted its lost characters with bigger action scenes, F9 is a return to form with Lin back at the helm and stronger character stories present throughout the movie. It has all the big, fun action of the best Fast & Furious movies, while still offering something deeper to ensure the core of F9 continues the franchise's theme of family.
As a result, F9 is perhaps the perfect movie to anchor the summer 2021 blockbuster season. Its action lends itself to being seen on the big screen, so it's certainly worth catching F9 in movie theaters (where theaters are open and providing moviegoers feel safe), especially longtime fans of the franchise. With a number of character returns in addition to the most high-profile one in Han, F9 utilizes the Fast & Furious franchise's long history to great effect. Some of F9's retconning of that same franchise history - particularly in regard to Han's return and Jakob's addition to the Toretto family - may not work for everyone, but those who go into the film expecting a fun ride will get exactly that. F9 is the epitome of summer blockbuster - it's big fun and that makes for a wholly enjoyable moviegoing experience.
F9 starts playing in U.S. movie theaters Friday, June 25, 2021. It is 145 minutes long and rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action, and language.
