Thursday, April 13, 2017

The Fate of The Furious - Another Nonstop Action Movie and the Latest Installment of the Series

This is one of the must see movie of the year for me and my wife which was announced to be premiering on 12 April 2017. Due to the hype that the movie was having, all cinema chains in Indonesia informed that we could purchase the tickets in advance starting from 8 April. My wife and I immediately decided to see it on its first day. However, due to a seminar that I had to attend to on that day, I was worried that I could not make it to the 6 or 6.30PM shows in our favorite theaters. So we opted to buy the 9.15PM show in the cinema nearest to our place which would take least time for us to go home. Well now, why don't we go to the movie itself?

Brief Story Line

Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel - Riddick series, xXx and many others) were having his honeymoon with his wife Letty (Michelle Rodriguez - Machete Kills, Smurfs: The Lost Village etc) in Cuba. There, Dom met with a mysterious lady whom later on revealed to be called Cipher (Charlize Theron - The Devil's Advocate, Mad Max: Fury Road etc). She was able to convince Dom to help her doing something bad.

Meanwhile Agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson - San Andreas, Central Intelligence etc) was given assignment by his boss, for a mission outside US which was not officially sanctioned by the government. So when the task went terribly wrong, Hobbs got caught and was imprisoned. Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russel - Escape from New York, Tombstone etc) together with his junior agent Eisner (Scott Eastwood - Fury, The Longest Ride etc) tried to recruit Hobbs and work as rogue agent, as long as he admitted to the wrongdoings and he would be released.

Hobbs refused to do so and was put in the same jail with his enemy from Furious 7 Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham - Transporter trilogy, Spy, Mechanic: Resurrection and so on). Of course these two really hated each other and were obviously on each other's throat. After some convincing done by Mr. Nobody, Hobbs finally agreed to work with him in a special assignment. He would be accompanied by his friends who had previously worked together, i.e. Tej (Ludacris - Crash, Gamer etc), Roman (Tyrese Gibson - Transformers series, Death Race etc), Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel - Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, Game of Thrones TV series) and of course Letty. They were now joined by Deckard who was also somehow convinced by Mr. Nobody.

Their main task was actually to capture Cipher who had acquired an EMP bomb through the hands of Dom. The rest of the crew who were still struggling to believe it, had a reality check when Cipher and Dom appeared before them to acquire something that would help Cipher closer to her objective. Now, Hobbs, Letty and the rest had to do whatever it takes to bring down Cipher and try to make sure Dom returns back to his family.

So what was the reason for Dom's change of heart and assisted Cipher? What was Cipher's real intention? Could the team work together despite their differences? Find them all in this crazy exciting full action movie.

End of Brief Story Line

Well, as usual after watching a Fast and Furious movie, I was always amazed by how crazy the action stunts in every installment. It was like they tried to make it bigger, better and crazier in each movie. This one is no exception. The action sequences were all there, from the street car racing (which is the movie's unique specialty), the fighting scenes (made even more special with the addition of Jason Statham), and of course the car chase involving sooo many vehicles.

In term of story, I think the writers were quite smart to make the story intriguing with the betrayal of Dom to his family. They even made some surprising twists (though they were quite easily guessed by us audiences), nevertheless, kudos for their effort. The most surprising thing about the movie was the amount of funny scenes which I think were quite significant. The moments involving Roman were hilarious and even Jason Statham also had some moments as well. 

The movie also had some brief appearances and cameos by few characters from previous movies and a new interesting character played by Helen Mirren. I think she would appear in the future installments as well. One thing that I am quite amazed was how smart the people behind the franchise were. They have made the movie evolved again from originally a street car movies, to heist and now more like spy thing. But of course all the ingredients of Fast and Furious were still kept in tact. The special effects of the movie were good, the sound effects should be good (though I did not experience it as I watched it in the studio with normal sound system). I am seriously tempted to watch it again in a cinema with the cool sound system like Dolby Atmos or Auro 11.1 just to re-live the scenes with better sound.

My wife and I certainly were entertained by this movie. We had tons of enjoyment from the cool action sequence, the amount of funny moments, and even few of dramatic moments. So if you are looking for another outstanding action movie with all those qualities in this kind of movie, then this one certainly would not disappoint you. But if you are looking for deep conversation type of movie with heavy story line for an action movie with logic, then it may not suit you. Just a reminder that this is a pop corn action movie suitable for thrill action movie seekers like most of us. The choice is yours.

Happy watching!

Mike's movie moments rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

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