Despite the Craziness, "The Fate of the Furious" is Still a Lot of Fun

   The eighth (yes, eighth) film in The Fast and the Furious franchise opens this weekend. In what can only be described as pure popcorn entertainment, The Fate of the Furious does exactly what I figured it would do, while also doing something I thought it couldn't. Fans of the franchise will agree that the sad and touching end to Furious 7 was almost picture perfect when it comes to closing out a franchise. Dom and Letti were married, Brian and Mia retire from the game, and the gang ends up exonerated and left to live the lives they wish. Riding on the nostalgia of the late Paul Walker, Furious 7 became a billion dollar movie. It was fun, mindless action that doesn't take itself serious, while delivering an exciting and thrilling spectacle of insanity that only this franchise can seem to get away with. The Fate of the Furious, I thought, wouldn't be able to match that success. For starters, it's the first entry without Paul Walker, who was as much a face of the franchise as Vin Diesel. Second, it's the eighth...EIGHTH film. You begin to question, "what can they do that they haven't done already?"

   Well, they haven't run out of tricks yet, because F8 is a blast to watch. As with every other entry, this movie is the perfect popcorn flick. You can waltz into the auditorium, goodies in hand, plop down, shut your brain off, and find yourself enjoying the next two hours, completely separated from reality. There's an opening car race that is pretty awesome as well as some equally awesome stunts, some pretty sweet action scenes involving fists meeting faces, and a third act chase scene on ice with large vehicles, a submarine, and The Rock manhandling a torpedo, so on and so forth. As for the story, in a nutshell, Dom is blackmailed into turning on his team and working for a cyber-terrorist played by Charlize Theron (who was pretty great in this movie), while the team joins forces with past enemies in order to stop her and their rogue member. I could go on and on about the story, but no one goes into these movies looking for Oscar-caliber narrative and acting. This movie knows exactly what it is, and it delivers that in spades...and I enjoyed the heck out of it.

   Which brings me to my unsuspecting point. I didn't think that this movie could measure up to its previous entry. But I was wrong. I had just as much fun watching F8, mainly because of it's execution. Director F. Gary Gray is an accomplished filmmaker whose previous film Straight Outta Compton was a smash success. He knows how to blend drama, heart, character, and action all in a fairly seamless thread that makes for a compelling ride overall. He brings that same tenacity to this movie, blending the insane car action with some surprisingly heart-felt narrative points. There are stakes in this movie, unsuspecting though clearly foreshadowed in the first few minutes of the movie, that add a different level to the underlying theme of the entire franchise: family. Gray handles the action and drama really well, which by the end makes for a truly entertaining movie, even though that entertainment is over-the-top and insane at times.

   When all is said and done, I had a lot of fun with this movie. It doesn't take itself serious, it knows what it is and it hits that mark perfectly. Fans of the franchise will love it, movie-goers looking for something to shut their brain off and to enjoy I think will find that it meets that mark. Will it make a billion dollars? I don't think so. Despite the entertaining craziness, there still felt like there was something missing by not having Paul Walker there. It's truly unfortunate that we lost such a beloved individual so early in his life, and his loss is felt still. Yet despite the heartache, the franchise he helped build still revs on. The Fate of the Furious is pure entertainment, and if that's what you're looking for in your movie-going experience, then this should do the trick.