My wife is smart. She didn’t want to go to the screening of this. I’m a movie critic, I have no choice; but I brought a buddy of mine who is into action flicks. When he told me right before it started, “Ya know, this thing is about two and a half hours” I was worried.
We lasted almost an hour before we decided we had enough of this idiotic movie and just left.
Now I should note, I haven’t been a fan of this series. To put it into perspective, the last movie had two of these dudes flying into outer space in a Pontiac Fiero.
Let’s first talk about the cast. I really dug Vin Diesel when I first saw him in Boiler Room. He’s done mostly garbage since that film 23 years ago.
I’ve never cared for Michelle Rodriguez. She always looks like she smells something bad.
Ludacris is ludicrous on screen. He always has a dopey look on his mug. I can’t comment on his rap songs.
I dig Tyrese Gibson, and he never bothers me in these films.
My buddy was excited about Alan Ritchson in the cast, as he’s a fan of his work on the show Reacher.
I felt bad that Rita Moreno joined this cast, but I’m happy she’s doing more movies since her comeback in West Side Story (it’s just a shame the other movie was 80 for Brady).
And I figured they couldn’t go wrong adding Jason Momoa as the villain. Boy, was I wrong.
His over-the-top character was so cartoonish. I laughed during one motorcycle chase at about 80 mph through winding roads in Rome. He was able to reach down and program a long number into a device to detonate a bomb. I have enough problems trying to change the radio station on the touch screen on the dash of my car! But that’s the least of the unrealistic problems. What Vin does with his car is so utterly stupid, the crowd at the screening I was at was laughing at the absurdity of it. Oh, and the bomb is rolling through Rome like that big boulder that almost crushed Indiana Jones in the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
I could give you about 100 reasons why this movie was ridiculous, from the brief amount of time I watched it. But if you’re a fan of the series, you’ll probably have fun with it. Why listen to a critic bash it? You can watch them have a BBQ and talk about how they’re a family, and sign up for another job and get ambushed. Root against the mean people. Enjoy watching cars do things that are against all laws of physics.
The only thing I liked in the first 45 minutes was an opening scene that showed a cool ‘69 Charger doing fast donuts in a parking lot around some light posts, only to find out it was Vin in the passenger seat. It was his 7-year-old getting a driving lesson from him.
As we left early to go smoke a cigar, my buddy said “Did you see enough to write a review?”
I responded, “Who knows? I’ll give it a try.”
He chuckled as he said, “Just make it a two sentence review – Cars go vroom, cars go boom.”
0 stars from both of us.